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AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 
AND  MAJORITY  RULE 

A  STUDY  IN  AMERICAN  POLITICAL 
DEVELOPMENT 


By 
EDWARD  ELLIOTT,  Ph.D. 


PRINCETON  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

PRINCETON 

LONDON :  HUMPHREY  MILFORD 

OXFORD  UNIVERSITY  PRESS 

1916 


Copyright,  1916,  by 
Princeton  University  Press 

Published,  February,  1916 


/ 


PREFACE 

The  purpose  of  this  volume  is  to  point  out  the 
fact  that  the  people  of  the  United  States  have 
been  hindered  in  the  attainment  of  democracy,  or 
the  rule  of  the  majority,  by  the  form  of  govern- 
ment through  which  they  have  been  compelled  to 
act.  The  framers  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
United  States  and  of  the  states  sought  to  prevent 
the  immediate  and  direct  rule  of  the  mmierical 
majority  upon  the  theory  that  all  government  was 
by  nature  evil  and  that  the  people  might  become 
as  tyrannical  as  any  king. 

To  preserve  liberty  and  protect  the  individual 
it  was  thought  necessary  both  to  limit  the  sphere 
of  governmental  action  and  to  prevent  hasty  ac- 
tion under  the  influence  of  passion;  accordingly 
the  theory  of  the  separation  of  the  powers  of  gov- 
ernment and  the  system  of  checks  and  balances 
were  elaborated  in  close  connection  with  the 
theory  of  strictly  limited  and  delegated  powers. 

The  popularity  of  a  republican  form  of  govern- 
ment long  bHnded  us  to  a  realization  of  the  true 
condition  and  in  the  meanwhile  many  attempts 

iii 


3436S7 


iv  PREFACE 

were  made  to  restore  the  government  to  the 
people  on  the  assumption  that  somehow  or  other 
forces  hostile  to  popular  control  had  obtained 
possession  of  the  government ;  these  reforms  have 
not  accomplished  the  desired  end;  the  people  do 
not  govern. 

Moreover  we  have  ceased  to  fear  the  action  of 
government  as  dangerous  to  liberty  and  are  eager 
to  have  it  undertake  a  wide  field  of  activity  in  be- 
half of  the  social  well  being;  we  find,  however, 
that  government  is  neither  equipped  with  the 
necessary  authority  nor  fashioned  for  efficiency 
in  performing  these  new  tasks.  The  suggestion 
is  here  made  that  the  modification  of  our  govern- 
ment must  be  in  the  direction  of  greater  simplicity 
if  we  would  secure  efficiency  and  responsibility 
to  the  will  of  the  people, 

I  wish  to  express  my  appreciation  of  the  kind- 
ness of  my  colleague  Dean  David  P.  Barrows  of 
the  University  of  California  and  of  Professor 
Edgar  Dawson  of  Hunter  College,  New  York 
City,  who  have  read  the  manuscript  in  whole  or 
in  part. 

Edward  Elliott. 
Berkeley,  California 

October  1915 


TO  MY  WIFE 

IN   AFFECTIONATE   ACKNOWLEDGMENT 

OF  HER  STEADFAST  INTEREST 

AND  CONSTANT  ASSISTANCE 


CONTENTS 

PAGE 

I.  Colonial  Conditions  and  the  Framing 

of  the  Constitution 1 

II,  Early  Efforts  to  Secure  Popular  Con- 

trol  ..■..■>■>■■  I,  >■  ■'»■■>■■»  ■  .^^  T 28 


III.  The  New  Democracy  of  the  West 55 

IV.  Civil  War  and  Majority  Rule 78 

V.  Development  of  Parties  and  Party 

Machinery 96 

VI.  Some  Newer  Forms  of  Popular  Gov- 
ernment     119 

VII.  The  Simplification  of  Government. . .   144 


Vll 


CHAPTER  I 

COLONIAL  CONDITIONS  AND  THE  FRAMING  OF  THE 
CONSTITUTION 

The  roots  of  American  democracy  run  back  as 
far  in  history  as  do  those  of  American  govern- 
ment. In  both  instances  colonial  conditions  and 
institutions  are  midway  points,  from  which  one 
looks  back  to  the  mother  country  and  forward  to 
the  twentieth  century.  To  know  and  understand 
the  problems  of  government  which  confront  our 
democracy  today,  we  must  look  to  the  steps  by 
which  the  present  relation  of  governmental  insti- 
tutions to  democratic  desires  has  been  attained. 

The  seyenteenth  century _was  the  century  of 
vrevolution  in  English  history.  In  America  it 
was  Ihe  century  of  colonial  settlement  and  the 
home  conditions  and  differences  found  reflection 
to  some  extent  in  the  settlements  made  in  Amer- 
ica. But  despite  the  differences  in  religious  be- 
liefs and  in  the  relative  importance  in  the  scheme 
of  government  to  be  attributed  to  King  and  Par- 

1 


2  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

liament,  there  was  unanimity,  both  in  England 
and  in  the  colonies,  regarding  the  general  frame- 
work and  structure  of  government.  The  struggle 
for  English  liberty  did  not  concern  itself  with 
the  form  of  government  but  with  the  relative 
power  in  government  to  be  enjoyed  by  King  and 
Parliament.  The  period  of  the  Commonwealth 
was  anomcjous  and  was  not  the  result  of  a  revolu- 
tionary movement  to  do  away  with  the  monarchy. 
Even  under  the  Commonwealth  the  old  form  was 
retained  but  with  a  new  name. 

The  essential  elements  of  the  framework  of 
English  government  were  a  single  executive,  the 
king,  and  a  dual  legislative  body,  the  Parhament, 
composed  of  the  hereditary  Lords  and  the  elected 
Commoners.  It  was  this  form  of  government 
which  was  set  up  in  the  colonies,  modified  to  suit 
the  new  conditions.  The  governor,  the  council 
and  the  general  court  or  burgesses  repeated  the 
general  features  of  English  government,  but  the 
conditions  and  circumstances  of  their  settlements 
produced  important  modifications. 

The  colonial  settlements  in  Virginia,  which 
may  be  regarded  as  typical  in  large  measure  of 
the  other  Southern  colonies,  were  made  by  men 
principally  interested  in  a  commercial  venture. 


if  '     ^  r 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  S 

They  were  in  sympathy  politically  with  the  crown 
and  religiously  with  the  Church  of  England  and 
yet  they  soon  found  themselves  in  opposition  to 
royal  policies  and  nowhere  in  the  colonies  was  the 
opposition  to  royal  governors  more  bitter  than 
in  Virginia,  nor  were  the  rights  of  the  colonists 
to  self-government  anywhere  more  vigorously 
maintained. 

The  physical  conditions  of  life  of  the  early 
settlers  were^evefy  where  conducive  to  the  develop- 
ment of  a  democratic  spirit,  but  it  differed  very 
much  in  the  different  parts  of  the  coimtry.  In 
Virginia,  the  settlers  found  a  pleasant  and  fertile 
land,  watered  by  great  rivers  which  served  as 
highways  of  communication  and  transportation. 
One  by  one  large  tracts  along  the  rivers  were 
taken  up  and  each  plantation  became  the  center 
of  a  community  life  of  its  own.  Settlement  ad- 
vanced up  the  rivers,  plantation  after  plantation, 
each  with  its  own  wharf  whence  it  shipped  to- 
bacco in  vessels  which  bore  it  direct  to  England, 
bringing  back  in  exchange  everything  of  which 
the  plantation  might  be  in  need.  The  towns  were 
few  and  sparsely  populated  and  the  business  Ufe 
of  the  colony  was  carried  on  chiefly  directly  be- 
tween the  plantations  and  the  mother-country. 


4  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

This  method  of  settlement  was  favored  by  the 
natm*al  conditions  of  a  rich  soil  and  a  mild  cli- 
mate, by  the  geographical  features  of  the  country 
and  by  the  absence,  for  the  most  part,  of  hostile 
Indians,  which  permitted  of  scattered  settle- 
ments. The  agricultural  community  which  was 
developed  under  these  conditions  modelled  itself 
upon  rural  England.  The  county  was  the  impor- 
tant unit  of  government  and  the  economic  condi- 
tions tended  to  produce  a  limited  number  of 
leading  families,  corresponding  to  the  county 
families  in  England.  They  were  the  gentry,  a 
sort  of  landed  aristocracy,  to  which  the  institution 
of  slavery  furnished  an  additional  economic  and 
social  foundation. 

A  representative  assembly  was  early  developed 
in  the  colony  and  proved  a  constant  foe  to  royal 
privilege.  The  House  of  Burgesses  became  the 
bulwark  of  popular  liberty  and  through  it  the 
people  demanded  and  secured  a  large  share  in  the 

^cmment  of  the  colonjv/^elf -government  and 
a  right  to  approve  of  all  taxes  levied  were  sub- 
jects of  frequent  contests  with  royal  governors 
in  the  light  of  which  we  forget  the  pseudo-aristoc- 
/  racy  of  first  families  and  remember  only  the 
M      struggle  for  local  self-government — rightly  re- 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  6 

garded  as  one  of  the  most  important  elements  of    y 
American  democracy ._,. «_. ---^ 

In  New  England  there  were  different  motives 
lying  back  of  the  settlements  and  different  con- 
ditions surrounding  them  and  moulding  their  y 
institutions,  yet  here  too  a  great  love  of  hberty  as 
identified  with  self-government  grew  up.  The 
religious  motive  was  primarily  responsible  for  the  ^4 
migration  to  the  New  World  of  the  Puritan  _ 
colonists  of  New  England.  They  sought  a  place 
in  which  they  might  observe  their  own  forms  and 
maintain  their  own  doctrines  and  yet  remain 
Englishmen.  These  Puritans,  who  very  soon  be- 
came Congregationalists,  had  a  system  of  church 
government  which  contained  the  seeds  of  demo- 
cracy; every  church  was  separate  and  distinct 
from  every  other  and  was  composed  of  members, 
each  of  whom  had  an  equal  voice  with  every 
other  in  all  matters  concerning  church  govern- 
ment; every  church  was  governed  solely  by  its 
own  members  and  without  connection  with,  much 
less  without  subordination  to,  any  outside  body. 

Here   then   were   local   self-government   and 
equality  in  each  church  and  it  was  not  long  t^  be^re 
these  principles  of  ecclesiastical  organization  were 
transferred  to  the  field  of  politics,  and  local  self- 


flr-otKe^    iriflir^  ^^^^ 


6  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

r^  government  by  equals  became  an  accepted  axiom 
of  the  political  arrangements. 

The  form  of  government  in  which  these  ideas 
fomid  realization  was  that  of  the  "town,"  and  the 

'  town-meeting  has  become  the  classic  example  of 
pure  or  direct  democracy  in  America.  In  it  all 
the  freemen  of  the  "town"  or  district  might  gather 
and  in  it  the  laws  were  passed,  taxes  levied  and 
the  selectmen  chosen  to  execute  the  laws ;  to  it  also 
they  made  their  reports  and  by  it  they  were  held 
to  accoimt. 

The  conditions  of  life  surrounding  the  New 
England  colonists  were  favorable  to  the  develop- 

jCment  of  the  town  system,  with  its  democratic  fea- 
tures, and  unfavorable  to  the  development  of 
social  distinctions  and  classes.  The  country  was 
ill-adapted  to  agriculture  by  reason  of  a  poor 
and  rocky  soil  and  the  severity  of  the  winterst 
As  a  natural  result  the  settlers  soon  turned  to 
trade  and  commerce  and  were  thus  drawn  to- 
gether into  compact  settlements.  The  influence 
of  the  church  organization  was  a  strong  factor  in 
the  development  of  the  town  system  inasmuch 
''^  as  every  church  was  an  ecclesiastical  unit  as  every 
town  was  a  political  imit,  and  in  the  first  years  of 
settlement  only  the  church  members  were  citizens 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  7 

of  the  town  with  a  voice  in  the  town  meeting. 
Finally  the  warlike  and  hostile  Indians  were  long 
a  terror  to  the  New  England  settlers  and  theU 
need  for  protection  forced  the  colonists  to  holdl 
together. 

The  Qounty  never  played  a  conspicuous  part 
in  the  governmental  arrangements  of  New  Eng-:_ 
land,  serving  chiefly  as  a  judicial  district.  The 
elective  General  Court  was  always  active  in  up- 
holding the  rights  of  the  colonists  to  local  self- 
government;  in  the  charter  colonies,  where  the 
governors  were  chosen  by  the  people,  the  prin- 
ciple of  self-government  was  carried  out  in  the 
largest  measure.  The  struggles  of  the  people 
against  the  crown  were  as  violent  and  as  dramatic 
as  in  any  part  of  the  country. 

The  conditions  of  life  in  New  England  more 
than  elsewhere  in  the  American  colonies  were  un- 
favorable to  the  development  of  an  aristocratic 
spirit;  there  were  no  great  landed  proprietors 
nor  was  slavery  ever  very  prevalent,  and  the  life 
in  the  towns  was  close  and  intimate,  but  above  all 
tBe  ease  with  which  a  man  could  become  indepen- 
dent and  the  necessity  under  which  all  were  of 
working,  made  the  maintenance  of  social  classes 
an  impossibility.    There  was  little  or  no  attempt 


N*' 


8  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

to  do  so  and  both  the  social  and  pohtical  arrange- 
ments were  developed  along  democratic  lines. 

What  took  place  in  New  England  and  in  the 
South,  took  place  in  a  modified  form  in  the  middle 
colonies.  As  they  were  the  middle  colonies  geo- 
graphically, so  they  were  in  their  life  and  their 
government.  The  soil  and  climate  were  not 
mif riendly  to  agriculture,  yet  the  splendid  rivers 
and  harbors  were  productive  of  coromerce; 
neither  the  town  nor  the  coimty  system  of  local 
self-government  predominated  nor  in  colonial 
government  was  there  the  same  bitter  contest 
between  the  crown  and  the  representatives  of  the 
people.  The  type  of  governmental  form  and  of 
democratic  feeling  was  less  pronounced  than  in 
the  other  sections,  yet  here,  too,  the  fundamental 
-\  conditions  of  hf e  and  of  governmental  form  were 
essentially  democratic. 

In  all  the  colonies  there  were  certain  general 
features  to  be  found,  which  were  due  partly  to 
their  common  origin,  and  partly  to  the  fact  of  the 
settlement  of  a  new  country ;  there  was  a  common 
language  and  a  common  law  and  despite  the  dif- 
ferences in  local  and  colonial  governments,  there 
were  many  likenesses  in  governmental  structure ; 
everywhere  there  was  a  large  measure  of  self- 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  9 

government  and  an  equally  large  measure  of  love 
of  liberty;  everywhere  the  conditions  of  hfe  had 
tended  to  produce  social  equality.  Upon  the 
foundation  of  their  common  elements,  a  union 
of  the  colonies  for  the  defense  of  their  liberty  was 
possible  and  a  common  declaration  of  their  poli- 
tical principles  became  the  first  step  toward  a 
national  life  and  a  national  democracy. 

The  Declaration  of  Independence  sought  to 
justify  the  Revolution  by  a  system,  of  political 
philosophy  which  was  thoroughly  English  in  its  .;C 
origin.  At  the  close  of  the  revolutionary  move- 
ments of  the  seventeenth  century  iij  England 
there  came  the  "Great  and  Glorious  Revolution" 
of  1688  in  which  the  power  of  the  people  as  rep- 
resented in  Parliament  finally  achieved  recogni- 
tion and  the  kings  of  England  were  thenceforth 
kings  by  the  grace  of  the  people  and  not  by  the  ^ 
grace  of  God. 

In  the  midst  of  the  Civil  Wars  the  royalist, 
Thomas  Hobbes,  had  sought  to  establish  the 
power  of  the  king  by  a  theory  of  society  and  of 
government  which  placed  absolute  and  unlimited 
power  in  the  hands  of  the  sovereign,  whom 
Hobbes  was  prone  to  identify  with  the  absolute 
monarch.    According  to  his  view  men  originally 


10  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

lived  in  a  state  of  nature  in  which  every  man  had 
a  right  to  everything  and  in  which  might  made 
right.  This  state  of  nature  was  a  state  of  war 
of  all  against  all  and  in  it  "the  life  of  man  was 
nasty,  solitary,  poor,  brutish  and  short." 

In  order  to  escape  from  the  ills  of  the  state  of 
nature  and  under  the  guidance  of  a  law  of  na- 
ture which  bade  men  seek  peace,  every  man 
entered  into  a  contract  with  every  other  man  by 
which  each  surrendered  to  the  sovereign,  in  so 
far  as  every  one  else  did  the  same  thing,  his  right 
to  govern  himself.  The  sovereign,  who  himself 
did  not  enter  into  the  contract,  thus  became  pos- 
sessed of  supreme  and  unlimited  power  over  all 
the  individuals  in  society;  by  the  contract,  they 
had  made  his  will  their  will  and  consequently  re- 
bellion was  a  logical  absurdity.  Moreover  to 
rebel  and  to  overthrow  government,  the  sov- 
ereign power,  was  to  break  the  social  compact 
and  to  remit  men  again  to  a  state  of  universal 
war. 

The  conception  of  absolute  power  in  the  mon- 
archy was  definitely  defeated  in  England  in  the 
Revolution  of  1688  and  John  Locke  sought  to 
give  to  the  success  of  the  popular  movement,  as 
Hobbes  had  given  to  the  royalists,  a  theoretical 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  11 

and  philosophical  foundation.  The  elevation  of 
William  and  Mary  to  the  throne  was  regarded  as 
the  triumph  of  liberty  and  this  liberty  Locke 
sought  to  justify  through  the  nature  of  society 
and  government  and  ultimately  through  the  na- 
ture of  man  himself.  His  starting  point  is  the 
fact  that^man  is  not  responsible  for  his  own  exist- 
ence, and  has  not  ^^iplete^power  over  his  own 
life  sincejiejiasjioright  to  take  his  life,  which 
came  from  God ;  there£Qrele_.cannot  give  to  an- 
other  coinplete  power  over  hisjifei^since  he  can- 


not_givejnore_than  he  Emself  possesses. 

The  state  of  nature  which  preceded  society 
Locke  thought  was  a  state  of  peace  and  not  a 
state  of  war  and  by  the  social  contract  men  sought 
only  to  avoid  the  inconveniences  arising  in  the 
state  of  nature;  these  were  due  to  the-fact  that 
every  man  was  judge  in  his  own  case  and  society 
was  established  in  order  that  there  might  be  a 
common  judge  and  a  known  law  to  live  by.  GUi^ 
ernments  were  set  up  for  the  protection  of  life, 
liberty  and  estate,  and  whenever  they  failed  to 
accomplish  the  purpose  for  which  they  were  es- 
tablished, they  might  be  changed  by  the  people; 
government  was  agent,  not  master,  and  the  over- 
throw of  government  did  not  destroy  society. 


12  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

The  right  of  revolution  was  a  logical  deduction 

from  his  theory  of  the  purpose  of  government 

\    and  it  rested  in  the  people  from  whose  consent 

in  the  social  contract  governments  derive  their 

powers. 

Locke  was  seeking  to  justify  the  Revolution  of 
1688,  by  which  a  limited  royal  authority  had  been 
constituted,  through  a  theory  of  government 
which  made  all  pohtical  authority  limited  by  the 
very  nature  of  its  objects,  and  at  the  same  time 
Vhe  found  a  protection  for  the  liberty  of  the 
individual  against  all  government  in  the  moral 
nature  of  man.  .Bom  free,  it  was  not  within 
the  power  of  men  to  give  to  anyone  despotic 
power  over  th^n;  absolute  political  power  was 
impossible. 

In  this  fashion  Locke  sought  to  establish  the 

theoretical  basis  for  human  liberty,  and  the  Whig 

party  in  England  during  almost  a  century  of 

Xsupremacy    proclaimed   its   adherence   to   these 

principles;  their  application  resulted  in  a  su- 

.      premacy  of  Parliament  over  the  King  and  of  the 

/       House  of  Commons  over  the  Lords. 

The  Whigs  and  the  theories  of  Locke  fell  on 
evil  days  when  George  III  came  to  the  throne; 
he  established  a  practical  control  over  Parha- 


f 

AND  MAJORITY  RULE  13 

ment  and  came  nearer  realizing  the  Stuart  idea 
of  absolute  royal  power  than  any  king  since 
Charles  I.  It  was  against  this  royal  power 
grown  to  such  dangerous  proportions  that  the 
Declaration  of  Independence  was  largely  di- 
rected, and  the  theories  of  Locke  formed  the 
foundation  upon  which  the  colonists  grounded 
their  claims.  To  the  theory  of  Locke  that  gov- 
ernment is  limited  by  its  purposes  and  that  when 
it  fails  to  fulfill  these  purposes  it  may  be  over- 
thrown, there  was  added  the  conception  of  the 
inherent  and  inalienable  rights  of  man.  The  ^" 
idea  that  all  men  were  endowed  by  their  Creator 
with  certain  rights,  among  which  were  the  rights 
to  life,  liberty  and  the  pursuit  of  happiness,  had 
been  developed  in  the  colonies  and  first  of  all  in 
Rhode  Island  when  Roger  Willi^lms  proclaimed 
religious  liberty  as  belonging  to  men  simply  be-  ^ 
cause  they  were/men^ 

The  political  philosophy  of  the  Declaration 
of  Independence  was  firmly  rooted  in  individual 
liberty  and  the  end  sought  by  it  was  some  barrier 
to  the  action  of  government  which  could  protect 
the  liberty  of  the  individual;  the  theory  that  it 
was  the  inevitable  tendency  of  all  governments 
to  become  oppressive  and  tyrannical  found  gen- 


14  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

eral  acceptance ;  government  was  regarded  as  the 
natural  foe  of  liberty  and  therefore  some  check 
upon  its  action  was  needed.    Locke  went  back  to 
i  man  in  a  state  of  nature^and  the  colonists  to  the 
/nature  of  man,  while  the  Declaration  of  Indepen- 
^  dence  proclaimed  rights  both  by  the  law  of  na- 
ture and  by  the  nature  of  man. 

The  Declaration  of  Independence  was  the 
embodiment  of  the  political  philosophy  as  well  as 
of  the  causes  of  the  Revolution,  or  rather  let  us 
say  that  the  events  which  led  to  the  Declaration 
were  violations  of  a  theory  of  government  and  a 
l  statement  of  this  theory  was  an  essential  part  of 
the  justification  of  the  step  that  was  being  taken. 
The  principles  then  proclaimed  have  been  the 
great  democratic  platform  for  succeeding  gener- 
ations and  the  history  of  om*  political  struggles 
may  be  interpreted  as  a  succession  of  more  or  less 
successful  efforts  on  the  part  of  the  people  to 
secure  in  practice  the  application  of  these  theo- 
ries. It  is  true  that  the  belief  in  a  doctrine  of 
natural  rights  has  almost  disappeared  and  that 
no  longer  do  we  seek  an  impassable  barrier  to 
limit  the  action  of  government,  but  the  attempt 
.  to  establish  the  equality  of  all  men  and  to  make 
V/     government  derive  its  just  powers  from  the  con- 


1*^ 

AND  MAJORITY  RULE  16 

sent  of  the  governed  has  gone  steadily  for- 
ward. The  Declaration  has  been  the  platform  of 
American  democracy  and  the  realization  of  its 
planks  has  been  'sought  through  governmental 
arrangements. 

The  only  bond  of  union  among  the  colonies 
during  the  earlier  years  of  the  Revolution  was* 
the  Declaration  of  Independence ;  a  plan  of  gov- 
ernment to  unite  the  colonies  was  proposed  to 
the  Contmental  Congress  Jveiy_sogiL^ 
adoption  of  the  Declaration^  and  jhough  this_ 
plan  was^cceptfidiythe^Congre^^ 
ingyear  and  submitted  to  the  states  for  theix ap- 
proval, it  was  not  until  1781  that  it  was  accepted 
by  them  all.    This  plan  of  union,  called  the  Arti- 
cles of  Confederation,  held  the  colonies  together 
in  a  loose  union  until  the  adoption  of  the  present 
Constitution  in  the  year  1789. 

The  Articles  of  Confederation  were  based  upon 
the  theory  of  the  equality  of  the  states;  in  the 
single  governmental  agency,  the  Congress,  each 
state  had  an  equal  voice;  size  and  population 
were  not  accorded  consideration  and  Rhode 
Island  or.Delaware  was  as  strong  as  Massachu- 
setts or  Virginia.  The  Congress  resembled  a  , 
body  of  diplomats  more  nearly  than  anything  ^ 


T 


16  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

else  and  combined  in  itself  all  the  functions  of 
government,  * 

Even  before  the  Declaration  of  Independence, 
the  royal  governors  had  been  driven  out  and  a 
temporary  authority  set  up;  in  some  of  the  col- 
onies, constitutions  had  been  adopted,  setting 
up  a  framework  of  government  identical  with 
the  colonial  forms  except  that  popular  sov- 
ereignty replaced  that  of  the  king  and  an  elected 
governor  and  legislative  bodies,  the  governor  and 
council  appointed  by  the  crown.  Immediately 
after  the  Declaration  and  upon  the  advice  of  the 
.  Congress,  all  the  states  did  likewise.  The  gen- 
^  eral  model  was  Parliament  and  the  features  of  a 
single  executive  and  a  dual  legislative  body  were 
generally  present  in  the  new  state  governments. 
^  The  interesting  and  novel  feature  about  these 
new  written  constitutions  was  the  fact  that  they 
rested  upon  the  theory  of  popular  sovereignty; 
the  will  of  the  people  was  the  supreme  and  ulti- 
mate source  of  all  power;  from  them  all  govern- 
ments derived  their  powers,  thus  putting  into 
immediate  practical  operation  one  plank  from  the 
platform  in  the  Declaration  of  Independence. 
Moreover  these  constitutions,  resting  upon  the 
will  of  the  people,  were  regarded  as  limitations 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  17 

upon  the  powers  of  thepeople;  they  were  the 
seJf-iinposed^Jimits~u^^  powers  of  govern-  r 

ment.  Other  evidence  of  this  attitude  toward 
government  is  seen  in  the  Bills  of  Ri^ts,  prefixed 
to  most  of  these  new  state  constitutions ;  they  were 
an  expression  in  concrete  form  of  the  inherent 
and  inalienable^ghts  of  man  which  not  even  a  lu 
popular  government  could  violate. 

In  the  period  of  agitation  which  preceded  the 
outbreak  of  the  Revolution,  the  colonists  had  dis- 
cussed the  principles  of  government  in  many  well 
argued  pamphlets  and  had  arrived  at  a  pretty 
clear  view  of  the  theory  of  government — a  view 
which  found  expression  in  the  Declaration  of 
Independence.  After  the  war  began,  political 
discussion  was  no  longer  of  practical  consequence  \ 
and  soon  ceased  altogether;  it  did  not  begin  again 
until  the  failure  of  the  Union  under  the  Articles 
of  Confederation  brought  a  realization  of  the 
need  for  some  other  and  better  form  of  Union  if 
the  fruits  of  victory  were  to  be  attained  in  the 
fullest  measure.  < 

The  weakness  of  the  Union  under  the  Articles 
•f  Confederation  lay  in  the  fact  that  the  Ctn- 
gress  had  n#  pfwtfr  t#  p*t  ita  determimatirtis  into 
effect  but  was  compelled  to  depend  upon  the 


<i. 


^- 


18  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

individual  states  to  carry  them  out  within  their 
own  borders.  This  weakness  was  best  illustrated 
in  the  field  of  finance.  The  Articles  of  Con- 
federation conferred  upon  the  Congress  the  right 
to  levy  requisitions  upon  the  states  and  in  putting 
this  right  into  operation,  the  Congress  appor- 
tioned to  each  state  the  amount  of  its  contribution 
to  the  general  fund.  But  Congress  had  no  way 
of  compelling  a  state  to  comply  with  the  requisi- 
tion; it  itself  could  not  levy  a  tax  upon  the  indi- 
viduals and  it  could  not  force  a  state  to  do  so; 
it  could  only  request  a  state  to  pay  and  then 
leave  it  wholly  at  the  pleasure  of  the  state  to 
comply  or  not.  Voluntary  contributions  for  poli- 
tical purposes  are  not  likely  to  continue  unless 
the  contributor  feels  some  immediate  gain  there- 
from, and  in  the  case  of  the  states,  jealousies  and 
local  pride  were  placed  in  the  scale  against  the 
support  of  the  government  of  the  Confederation. 
Following  hard  upon  the  conclusion  of  peace 
with  Great  Britain,  a  period  of  "hard  times''  be- 
gan; business  of  every  sort  had  been  badly  de- 
ranged and  in  many  cases  destroyed  by  the  war; 
the  financial  situation  was  bad  but  more  from  the 
lack  of  a  good  financial  program  and  a  govern- 
ment adequate  to  carry  it  out  than  from  the 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  19 

actual  condition  of  the  country;  an  inflation  of 
the  currency  though  unsupported  issues  of  paper 
money  had  brought  the  quick  retribution  of  the 
destruction  of  credit;  the  soldiers  constituted  a 
numerous  and  often  dissatisfied  element  in  the 
community;  the  war  had  broken  down  many 
social  lines  and  had  put  the  commimities  in  a 
state  of  social  fluidity  with  an  accompanying 
social  unrest.  Economic  depression  and  social 
unrest  combined  produced  disorders  which  gov-y 
emment  found  it  very  difficult  to  suppress. 

In  the  midst  of  such  conditions,  the  inadequacy 
and  inefficiency  of  the  central  government  were 
apparent ;  the  only  hope  of  order  lay  in  the  state 
governments  which  were  strengthened  in  the  pop- 
ular mind  in  proportion  as  the  central  government  *^' 
proved  inadequate;  yet  it  was  evident  that  some 
union  of  the  states  was  necessary,  both  as  a  pro- 
tection against  foreign  powers  and  as  a  means  of 
maintaining  peace  and  prosperity  at  home. 

It  is  familiar  history  how  the  states  began  to 
discriminate  against  each  other  in  their  commer- 
cial regulations  and  how  out  of  these  came  th^ 
Annapolis  Convention  to  consider  the  commercial 
interests  of  the  states  bordering  upon  the  Pot6- 
mac  and  the  Delaware,  and  how  the  Annapolis 


/ 


20  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

Convention,  convinced  that  only  a  national  com- 
mercial system  could  settle  the  questions  involved, 
issued  a  call  for  a  general  convention  of  delegates 
from  all  the  states  to  meet  in  Philadelphia  in 
the  year  1787. 

The  Congress  had  degenerated  both  in  num- 
bers and  in  quality  till  it  commanded  little  re- 
spect; seeing  the  handwriting  on  the  wall,  it 
heeded  the  signs  of  the  times  and  issued  a  call 
for  a  constitutional  convention  to  meet  at  the 
same  time  and  place  as  indicated  by]  the  An- 
napolis convention.  The  two  were  thus  coalesced 
and  resulted  in  the  Constitutional  Convention  of 
1787,  called  in  the  words  of  the  resolution  of  the 
Congress,  "for  the  sole  and  express  purpose  of 
revising  the  Articles  of  Confederation." 

So  much  of  the  history  of  the  calling  of  this 
Convention  has  been  thought  necessary  to  show 
how  fully  the  "Fathers"  believed  in  the  political 
philosophy  which  placed  all  political  authority 
in  the  people  and  which  proclaimed  that  all  just 
governments  derived  their  powers  from  the  con- 
sent of  the  governed. 

Upon  assembling  in  Philadelphia,  the  dele- 
gates to  the  Convention  were  impressed  with  the 
impossibility  of  amending  successfully  the  Arti- 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  21 

cles  of  Confederation.  One  of  their  first  acts, 
therefore,  was  to  abandon  the  instructions  under 
which  the  Convention  had  been  called  and  to 
determine  to  elaborate  a  new  form  of  government 
for  the  Union.  Such  an  act  was  revolutionary 
and  accordingly  the  Convention  determined  to 
submit  the  result  of  its  labors  to  the  people  for 
their  approval  or  rejection,  and  not  to  the  legis- 
latures of  the  state.  If  the  people,  the  source  ^ 
of  political  power,  approved  of  their  work  and 
adopted  the  constitution,  all  irregularities  of 
procedure,  all  revolutionary  acts  of  the  Conven- 
tion, would  be  wiped  out.  This  step  by  the  Con- 
vention resulted  in  the  reference  of  the  proposed 
constitution  to  conventions  in  the  several  states 
and  set  a  precedent  which  became  well  nigh  uni- 
versal in  our  constitutional  practice.  Generally 
speaking  our  constitutions  and  their  amendments  . 
have  differed  from  ordina]:y  law  in  being  accepted  ! 
by  the  people,  either  through  conventions  or 
through  popular  vote,  instead  of  through  legis- 
latures. More  recently  this  distinction  has  been 
minimized,  if  not  obliterated  in  certain  of  the 
states,  through  the  adoption  of  the  initiative  and 
the  referendimi  for  the  passage  of  ordinary  laws. 
The  new  form  of  government  which  the  Con- 


>-*^ 


22  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

vention  devised  for  the  Union  differed  from  the 
old  form  mider  the  Articles  of  Confederation  in 
many  essential  particulars.  In  the  first  place  it 
was  a  Federal  Union  instead  of  a  Confederation ; 
it  was  itself  a  state  composed  of  states  and  not  a 
mere  league  or  alliance  of  states.  The  equality  of 
the  states  which  was  fundamental  under  the  Ar- 
ticles, was  abandoned  under  the  new  plan  except 
for  the  equal  representation  of  the  states  in  the 
Senate.  This  is  not  the  place  for  a  presentation 
of  the  struggles  and  compromises  of  the  Conven- 
tion ;  it  is  enough  for  our  purposes  to  observe  the 
results  as  seen  in  the  structure  of  the  govern- 
ment and  the  spirit  which  underlay  that  structure. 
/The  outline  of  our  system  of  government  is 
quickly  stated.  The  people  are  regarded  as  the 
possessors  of  all  political  power;  a  portion  of 
their  power  they  have  delegated  to  ,the  central 
government,  a  portion  to  the  state  governments, 
and  a  portion  they  have  retained.  The  principle 
which  underlay  the  division  of  powers  between 
the  state  governments  and  the  Federal  govern- 
ment was  to  retain  for  the  former  those  subjects 
of  action  which  were  local  and  particular  and  to 
f  confer  upon  the  latter  the  power  to  deal  with 
those  matters  which  were  common  to  all  the  states.'^ 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  23 

So  it  was  that  foreign  affairs,  the  army  and  navy, 
the  financial  system,  the  coinage,  the  postal  ser- 
vice, and  interstate  and  foreign  commerce  were 
delegated  to  the  central  government  while  rights 
of  property  and  of  contract  and  family  relations 
were  left  to  the  states. 

All  governmental  authority  was  distributed 
among  the  three  branches  or  departments,  the 
executive,  the  legislative  and  the  judicial.  The 
chief  executive  was  a  single  individual,  the  Pres- 
ident in  the  Federal  government  and  the  gov- 
ernors in  the  states;  the  legislative  power  was 
everywhere  lodged  in  two  houses,  an  upper  and 
a  lower,  and  the  judicial  in  a  hierarchy  of  courts 
culminating  in  the  Supreme  Court  of  the  United 
States  and  similar  courts  in  each  state.  The 
models  for  this  structure  of  government  were  the/^ 
colonial  institutions  and  the  British  government. 

The  s_pirit  which  underlay  this  framework  and 
system  of  governments  is  not  so  readily  and  easily 
stated.  There  was  a  very  general  acceptance  of 
the  principle  of  popular  sovereignty  buj  combined 
with  this  acceptance  went  a  fear  of  government 
which  resulted  in  a  fundamental  contradiction 
between  theory  and  practice.  Though  the  power  . 
of  the  people  was  recognized,  it  was  everywhere 


h 


i 


24  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

subjected  to  limitations  the  purpose  of  which  was 
to  prevent  government  from  becoming  an  instru- 
ment of  oppression. 

The  conception  of  modem  democracy  is  based 
upon  equaHty  and  majority  rule,  but  no  such 
ideas  were  in  the  minds  of  the  f  ramers  of  the  con- 
stitutions, either  those  of  the  states  or  that  of  the 
nation.  The  principle  of  equality  and  the  rule 
of  the  majority  were  theoretically  accepted  but 
^ /in  practice  the  suffrage  was  restricted  to  the 
^  propertied  classes  and  the  rule  of  the  majority 
within  these  classes  was  very  tightly  hemmed  in 
by  provisions  for  the  protection  of  the  minority, 
'here  were  at  least  three  factors  which  are 
worthy  of  consideration  in  an  analysis  of  this 
spirit  which  underlay  the  inception  of  our  gov- 
jemments.  In  the  first  place  the  impression  of 
^  George  III  as  a  "royal  brute"  and  a  tyrant,  seek- 
ing to  crush  liberty  in  America,  had  sunk  deep 
into  the  minds  of  the  men  of  the  Revolution,  who 
were  likewise  the  makers  of  the  constitutions. 
Royal  governors  in  the  American  colonies  were 
the  local  examples  of  that  tyranny  which  had 
become  associated  in  history  with  royal  power 
and  royal  power  was  synonymous  with  the  power 
of  government.    The  absolute  monarchy  was  the 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  26 

all  but  universal  type  of  government  in  the  seven- 
teenth and  eighteenth  centuries.  For  this  rea- 
son, if  for  no  other,  governments  and  rulers  were 
objects  of  suspicion  to  the  people,  and  this  atti- 
tude was  present  even  toward  governments  set 
up  upon  the  revolutionary  basis  of  popular  sov- 
ereignty. But  a  second  reason  for  the  attitude 
of  distrust  of  government  is  to  be  found  in  a 
theory  which  goes  back  to  the  Church  Fathers, 
They  regarded  the  institution  of  government  as 
due  to  the  fall  of  man  in  Adam  and  as  a  punish- 
ment for  this  original  sin.  Government,  then, 
was  by  its  nature  evil  and  one  phase  of  this  evil 
was  that  of  government  as  the  oppressor  of  man-  ^ 
kind.  This  view  was  a  natural  accompaniment 
of  the  age  of  absolute  monarchs. 

Finally  the  fear  of  government  took  on  another 
aspect.  The  rulers  had  been  the  source  of  the 
taxing  power  by  which  the  individual  was  com- 
pelled to  part  with  his  property  at  the  whim  of 
the  monarch,  and  too  often  he  saw  that  the  only 
use  to  which  his  property  thus  taken  was  put, 
was  to  minister  to  the  vicious  pleasures  of  the 
ruler.  In  England  in  the  seventeenth  century, 
Locke,  in  seeking  to  protect  the  individual  in  the 
enjoyment  of  his  property,  developed  the  theory 


«6  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

that  one  of  the  purposes  of  government  was  the 
protection  of  property  and  that  when  govern- 
ment failed  in  its  purpose  or  violated  this  pur- 
pose, it  could  and  should  be  overthrown.  The 
protection  of  property  came  to  be  regarded  as  al- 
j  most  the  chief  function  of  government,  and  the 
\  makers  of  our  constitutions  were  principally  men 
of  property  who  held  this  conception  of  govern- 
ment. It  was  natural,  therefore,  that  they  should 
fear  lest  government  should  fall  under  the  con- 
trol of  the  people  without  property  who  might 
use  it  to  injure  and  not  to  protect  property. 

The  combination  of  these  three  factors  led  to 
the  many  complicated  checks  and  balances  to  be 
f oimd  in  the  system — each  of  which  is  fundamen- 
tally a  limitation  upon  the  immediate  and  direct 
supremacy  of  the  popular  will.  It  was  regarded 
as  most  unsafe  to  permit  the  will  of  the  people, 
upon  which  the  whole  structure  rested,  to  find  a 
ready  means  of  expression  for  it  was  very  gener- 
ally believed  that  tyranny  was  as  easily  developed 
under  popular  government  as  under  monarchical. 
Government  was  looked  at  askance  because  it 
(  had  always  been  master;  now  though  it  had  be- 
^come  servant,  somewhat  of  the  old  fear  of  it 
remained. 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  27 

The  progress  of  democracy  in  the  United 
States  has  witnessed  a  gradual  reaHzation  by  the 
people  that  government  is  the  servant  of  their 
will  and  they  have  set  it  to  work  to  perform  a 
multitude  of  tasks  in  their  behalf.  At  the  same 
time  the  conception  of  "the  people"  has  been 
steadily  broadened  through  the  extension  of  the 
suffrage  and  at  the  present  time  we  are  witness- 
ing many  efforts  on  the  part  of  this  democracy 
to  remove  all  the  hindrances  which  have  been 
interposed  to  prevent  the  inmiediate  realiz^ion 
of  its  will  through  governmental  institutions. 


CHAPTER  II 

EARLY  EFFORTS  TO  SECURE  POPULAR  CONTROL 

The  Articles  of  Confederation  had  been 
adopted  by  the  legislatures  of  the  states,  the 
members  of  the  Congress  had  been  chosen  by  the 
legislatures,  and  all  important  acts  of  the  Con- 
gress required  approval  by  the  legislatures  of  at 
least  nine  states,  while  all  changes  in  the  Articles 
themselves  necessitated  acceptance  by  all  of  them. 
The  Union  under  the  Articles  of  Confederation 
was  one  of  sovereign  states  to  which  the  name 
confederation  was  aptly  applied.  The  Congress 
resembled  an  assembly  of  diplomats  who  repre- 
sented their  states  and  not  the  people. 

We  have  seen  that  the  first  real  struggle  in 
the  constitutional  convention  took  place  over  the 
question  whether  or  not  its  labors  should  be 
confined  to  an  amendment  of  the  Articles  of 
Confederation  by  which  the  character  of  the 
Union  as  a  confederation  should  be  preserved, 
or  whether  a  different  form  of  Union  should  be 


MAJORITY  RULE  29 

sought  in  which  the  equality  of  the  states  as  a 
fundamental  principle  would  disappear.  Thd 
victory  in  this  contest  was  with  those  who  be- 
lieved that  no  sort  of  amendment  would  suffice, 
but  that  a  new  principle  of  union  must  be  sought. 
In  justification  of  this  determination,  made  in  the  % 
face  of  the  resolution  of  Congress  under  which! 
the  Convention  had  assembled,  it  was  decided  to  I 
submit  the  constitution  to  the  people  of  the  states 
for  adoption  or  rejection  through  conventious 
specially  chosen  for  that  purpose.  These  con- 
ventions were  supposed  to  represent  the  people 
directly,  while  the  legislatures  represented  the 
people  as  organized  into  states.  There  was  no 
thought  of  a  vote  by  the  people  of  the  states  di- 
rectly but  only  through  conventions.  Acceptance 
by  conventions  had  been  the  procedure  used  by  the 
states  in  the  adoption  of  their  own  constitutions 
and  it  was  not  till  a  generation  later  that  it  be- 
came customary  to  adopt  constitutions  and  con- 
stitutional amendments  by  direct  vote  of  the/ 
people.  Today  there  are  very  few  state  consti- 
tutions which  were  not  submitted  directly  to  the 
people  for  their  approval. 

When  the  Constitution  was  before  the  people 
for  acceptance  or  rejection,  a  strong  opposition 


30  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

/  to  it  was  developed  on  the  ground  that  it  did  not 
contain  a  Bill  of  Rights.  In  English  history- 
Bills  of  Rights  were  solemn  compacts  between  the 
kings  and  the  people  in  which  the  former  recog- 
nized and  guaranteed  for  the  future  certain  rights 
of  the  people.  In  America  they  had  found  a 
place  in  several  of  the  state  constitutions  as  guar- 
antees of  individual  liberty  against  the  action  of 
the  government.  Jefferson  was  one  of  the  most 
zealous  advocates  of  such  a  declaration  of  the 
limits  upon  governmental  action,  and  strongly 
objected  to  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  be- 
cause it  lacked  such  a  guarantee.  Hamilton,  on 
the  contrary,  maintained  that  a  Bill  of  Rights  in 

/the  Federal  Constitution  was  unnecessary, *inas- 

l  much  as  there  was  no  king  whose  oppression  they 
need  fear;  it  would  be  in  the  nature  of  a  self- 
limitation  which  was  superfluous  as  at  every 
approach  of  tyranny  in  the  government  the  peo- 
ple had  only  to  elect  other  officials.  Jefferson 
believed  that  the  tendency  of  all  government  was 
toward  the   oppression   of  the   individual   and 

/  therefore  such  limitations  were  necessary  even  in 
a  republican  form  of  government.  Strong  as  he 
might  be  in  asserting  the  right  of  the  people  to 
rule,  Jefferson  did  not  believe  that  a  government 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  31 

by  the  people  could  do  no  wrong.  He  feared 
even  a  democracy  could  be  tyrannical  and  he 
wished  to  see  the  individual  protected  against 
government. 

As  a  result  of  the  widespread  demand  for  a 
Bill  of  Rights,  it  was  practically  agreed  that 
the  new  constitution  when  adopted  should  be 
amended,  and  within  two  years  after  its  adoption 
the  first  ten  amendments,  virtually  a  Bill  of 
Rights,  were  accepted. 

The  new  government  was  inaugurated  in  the 
Spring  of  1789.  Washington  was  the  unanimous 
choice  of  the  electors  and  of  the  country  for  the 
first  President,  and  acting  in  the  spirit  of  a 
President  of  the  whole  coimtry,  he  appointed  to 
his  cabinet  men  of  opposing  political  principles. 
There  were  as  yet  no  parties,  but  it  was  matter 
of  general  knowledge  that  Jefferson,  as  Secretary 
of  State,  and  Hamilton,  as  Secretary  of  the 
Treasury,  would  have  different  conceptions  re- 
garding the  nature  and  the  functions  of  the  new 
government.  These  differences  were  not  slow  in 
developing. 

The  Confederation  had  failed  primarily  from 
the  lack  of  money;  it  had  no  power  to  levy  and 
collect  taxes,  it  could  only  ask  for  requisitions. 


AJ 


32  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

The  new  government  had  the  power  to  levy  and 
collect  taxes,  imposts  and  dues,  and  it  was  Ham- 
ilton's task  to  evolve  its  financial  system.  It  was 
,  a  stupendous  task  and  upon  its  success  depended 
the  existence  of  the  Union.  Any  financial  scheme 
that  he  might  devise  was  forced  to  care  for  the 
past  debts  as  well  as  for  the  future  expenditures. 
In  masterly  fashion  Hamilton  set  about  winning 
financial  strength  and  the  respect  of  the  people 
for  the  new  Union.  In  the  first  place,  it  was  a 
self-evident  duty  that  the  foreign  and  domestic 
debt  of  the  Confederation  which  had  been  in- 
curred in  prosecuting  the  Revolution,  should  be 
assumed,  and  measures  to  this  effect  were  pro- 
posed by  Hamilton  and  accepted  by  Congress. 
It  was  a  far  different  matter,  however,  with  the 
debts  of  the  individual  states,  and  their  assump- 
tion by  the  Federal  government  was  a  great  step 
toward  securing  for  it  a  greater  >respect  than 
attached  to  any  state.  The  assumption  of  these 
debts  by  the  new  government,  combined  with 
legislation  adequate  to  care  for  them,  drew  to 

Ithe  Union  the  support  of  the  holders  of  these 
obligations;  they  found  the  success  of  the  new 
government  identified  with  their  own  personal 
fortunes;  in  the  absence  of  any  feeling  of  pa- 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  83 

triotism  and  loyalty,  the  appeal  was  made  to 
self-interest. 

To  meet  what  seemed  to  many  a  crushing  bur- 
den of  debt,  Hamilton  secured  the  passage  of  a 
custom's  tariff  and  an  excise  measure,  both 
highly  productive  of  revenue  without  making 
direct  demands  upon  the  taxpayer  and  in  conse- 
quence sure  to  be  popular.  Both  continue  to  the 
present  as  the  chief  source  of  the  Federal  revenue. 
Finally,  to  complete  his  system  of  finances,  Ham- 
ilton advocated  the  establishment  of  a  govern- 
ment bank.  Here  for  the  first  time,  a  difference 
of  opinion  arose  which  was  not  concerned  with 
the  merits  of  the  proposed  bank  but  with  the 
power  of  the  Federal  government  to  establish  it. 
The  theory  was  universally  accepted  that  the 
Federal  government  was  one  of  delegated  pow- 
ers; that  the  Constitution  contained  the  grant  of 
all  powers  that  rightfully  belonged  to  it,  and 
nowhere  in  the  Constitution  was  the  power  to 
establish  a  national  bank  to  be  found.  Yet,  after 
the  enumeration  of  the  powers  expressly  granted, 
there  followed  these  words : 

The  Congress  shall  have  power  ...  to  make  all  laws 
which  shall  be  necessary  and  proper  for  carrying  into 
e'xecution  the  foregoing  powers,  and  all  other  powers 


t 

10 


34  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

vested  by  this  Constitution  in  the  government  of  the 
United  States,  or  in  any  department  or  officers  thereof. 

It  was  natural  that  Hamilton  should  have  laid 
he  emphasis  on  the  word  "proper"  and  Jefferson 
on  "necessary."  Hamilton  believed  in  govern- 
ment, in  its  efficiency  and  efficacy.  Human  prog- 
ress seemed  to  him  to  be  conditioned  by  the 
orderliness  of  society  and  this  orderliness  of  so- 
ciety by  strength  in  the  ruling  authority.  He  was 
not  afraid  of  the  aggressions  of  government  upon 
individual  rights ;  on  the  contrary,  he  believed  that 
individual  rights  could  only  be  secured  by  the 
agency  of  a  firm  and  well  established  authority. 
Jefferson's  views  were  the  exact  opposite.  He 
disbelieved  in  everything  that  Hamilton  thought 
essential.  Hamilton,  as  an  officer  of  the  govern- 
ment, was  eager  to  round  out  his  financial  plans, 
so  that  both  his  theoretical  views  and  his  personal 
desires  joined  to  make  him  see  in  the  establish- 
ment of  a  national  bank  a  perfectly  proper  means 
for  carrying  out  the  powers  which  had  been  dele- 
gated to  the  Federal  government.  In  his  advo- 
cacy of  the  bank,  he  developed  the  theory  of  the 
yimplied  powers"  of  the  Constitution,  the  theory 
of  "loose  construction"  as  opposed  to  the  doc- 
trine of  "strict  construction"  advocated  by  Jef- 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  36 

ferson.  To  the  latter,  no  power  could  properly 
be  implied  as  belonging  to  the  Federal  govern- 
ment which  was  not  absolutely  necessary  to  carry 
out  the  powers  expressly  granted,  while  to  Ham- 
ilton it  was  sufficient  if  the  power  were  a  proper 
one. 

The  struggle  for  the  adoption  of  the  Consti- 
tution had   developed  two   parties,   those   who 
favored  it  because  it  gave  hope  of  a  union  strong^ 
enough  to  exist,  and  those  who  opposed  it  be- 
cause of  the  fear  that  it  would  prove  too  strong  |^ 
for  the  welfare  of  the  individual  states.     After 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  it  was  natural 
that  the  latter  should  wish  to  see  the  Federal 
government  restrained  within  the  narrowest  pos- 
sible limits  and  that  many  of  them  should  be 
strict  constructionists.    Thus  the  germs  of  party  \ 
division  were  present,  though  unremarked,  from   ) 
the  establishment  of  the  new  government.     The 
establishment  of  the  National  Bank  and  the  theo- 
ries of  the  construction  of  the  Constitution  which 
arose  out  of  it,  gave  a  sufficiently  concrete  case 
for  division  and  very  rapidly  thereafter  two  par- 
ties formed  under  the  leadership  of  Hamilton  and 
Jefferson,  entitled  respectively  the  Federalists 
and  the  Democratic-Republicans. 


36  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

The  choice  of  a  successor  to  Washington  fell 
upon  John  Adams,  a  Federalist  of  very  aristo- 
cratic temper.  The  violence  of  factional  strife 
reached  its  climax  in  his  administration  and  the 
Federalists  felt  driven  by  the  bitterness  of  the 
attacks  of  their  opponents  to  pass  the  famous 
Alien  and  Sedition  Acts,  aimed  to  protect  the 
chief  executive  against  abuse  run  riot,  but  which 
came  dangerously  near  putting  arbitrary  power 
in  the  hands  of  the  government.  These  meas- 
ures were  the  culmination  of  the  FederaUst  legis- 
lation, each  step  in  which  had  come  to  be 
regarded  as  an  aggression  upon  the  liberties  of 
the  people.  They  were  too  extreme  and  brought 
overwhelming  defeat  to  their  authors  in  the  next 
election.  Likewise  they  called  forth  the  Virginia 
and  Kentucky  Resolutions,  adopted  by  the  legis- 
latures of  these  two  states  as  protests.  These 
protests  set  forth  the  theory  that  the  states  have  j 
the  right  to  declare  unconstitutional  those  acts 
of  Congress  in  excess  of  its  powers.  The  original 
draft  of  the  Kentucky  Resolutions  which  had 
been  made  by  Jefferson  and  sent  to  his  friend 
Breckinridge  to  introduce,  contained  the  asser- 
tion of  the  right  of  an  individual  state  to  nullify 
within  its  boundaries  any  act  in  violation  of  the 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  37 

Constitution,  a  doctrine  made  famous  by  Calhoun 

at  a  later  period.  ..^^ 

The  campaign  of  1800,  which  resultedTrPffie 
overthrow  of  the  Federalists  and  the  triumph  of 
Jefferson  and  the  Democratic-Republicans,  ^as 

a  reforjn  campaign^  the  first  of  many,  and13ie 

^''^^  -——^-         — -~'"^ 

reformation  sought  was  the  restoration  of  the 

government  to  tlie  control  of  the  people  and  to  its J 

original  limits^  The  Federalists  were  accused  of 
having  grossly  perverted  the  original  plan  of  the 
government  and  of  having  greatly  exceeded  the 
rightful  limits  of  Federal  authority,  to  the  great 
detriment  of  the  popular  welfare  and  with 
danger  to  individual  liberty.  Jefferson  was  the 
champion  of  the  rights  of  the  people  against  those  ;  : 
who  would  control  government  for  their  own  in- 
terests, and  this  political  cry  proved  as  effective 
then  as  in  more  recent  times,  for  the  Federalists 
were  swept  from  power  in  all  branches  of  the 
government  except  the  judiciary.  The  conserva- 
tive element  of  society  was  shocked  at  the  success 
of  the  masses  and  feared  that  the  institutions 
which  had  been  set  up  with  such  laborious  efforts 
\  would  be  overturned.  The  victory  of  the  radicals 
was  viewed  as  a  menace  to  all  sound  principles 
and  policies,  and  there  was  great  rejoicing  that 


I  — 4«XJ 


38  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

the  judiciary  at  least  was  saved.  The  victors  soon 
found  that  it  was  a  vastly  different  thing  to  be 
confronted  with  the  task  of  actually  running  a 
government  from  merely  indulging  in  criticism 
of  others.  Power  and  responsibility  are  gen- 
erally sobering  influences  upon  the  radical  who 
cries  for  change.  Once  in  office  there  comes  a 
new  viewpoint  which  has  converted  many  a  theo- 
retical radical  besides  Jefferson  into  a  practical 
conservative. 

So  far  as  the  powers  of  the  Federal  govern- 
ment were  concerned,  the  new  party  did  not 
curtail  a  single  one  of  those  of  which  the  Feder- 
alists had  made  use;  in  no  particular  did  they 
decrease  the  strength  of  the  government.  It 
seemed  to  change  the  whole  character  of  these 
powers  to  have  them  exercised  by  Democrats  (as 
they  soon  came  to  be  called)  instead  of  by  Fed- 
eralists. The  freedom  of  construction  by  which 
power  had  been  gained  was  left  unmolested.  In 
fine,  the  reformers  did  not  reform,  at  least  so  far 
as  the  structure  of  the  government  was  con- 
cerned. They  did  bring  in  an  entirely  new  spirit, 
however,  and  this  spirit  was  that  of  the  democ- 

y  which  was  just  beginning  to  feel  its  strength. 

As  time  has  gone  on,  it  has  more  and  more 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  39 

realized  its  power  and  has  sought  to  give  it  ex- 
pression in  the  greater  control  of  the  people  over 
government,  but  never  in  a  lessening  of  the  pow- 
ers of  the  government.  In  this  as  in  so  many- 
other  particulars,  the  Jeffersonian  democracy- 
was  a  forerunner  of  the  Jacksonian  democracy 
and  of  the  American  democracy  by  whatsoever 
name  it  may  be  called.  Hand  in  hand  with  the 
more  direct  control  of  government  by  the  will  of  ^\ 
the  majority  there  has  gone  a  great  increase  ij3L^/  \ 
the  functions  of  government.  With  the  growing 
consciousness  of  power,  the  people  have  lost  the 
fear  of  government  which  animated  the  framers 
of  the  Constitution,  and  they  no  longer  follow 
Jefferson  in  the  belief  that  the  tendency  of  gov- 
ernment is  inherently  toward  the  oppression  of 
the  individual.  They  have  both  accepted  and  re- 
jected the  teaching  of  Jefferson,  and  while  seek- 
ing to  make  the  popular  will  supreme,  they  have 
not  sought  to  curtail  its  expression. 

In  the  political  philosophy  of  Jefferson  there 
was  a  profound  trust  in  the  good  sense  of  the 
great  body  of  the  people  and  a  large  part  of  his 
success  was  due  to  this  attitude.  Yet  Jefferson 
had  a  profoimd  distrust  of  government  and 
sought  to  restrain  it  within  the  narrowest  possible 


40  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

limits,  and  as  a  restrictive  principle  he  desired  to 
introduce  local  self-government  as  widely  as 
possible  in  order  that  the  people  might  the  more 
closely  watch  their  officials.  Hmnan  nature  was 
all  right  when  applied  to  the  task  of  choosing 
representatives  and  deciding  upon  policie^  but 
all  wrong  when  set  to  carry  out  these  pohcies 
from  an  official  position.  Jefferson  accepted 
the  traditional  view  of  government  as  an  instru- 
ment of  oppression.  Such  it  undoubtedly  had 
been  imder  the  absolute  monarchy  which  had 
succeeded  the  feudal  system.  Jefferson  was 
not  pohtical  philosopher  enough  to  search  history 
for  an  explanation  of  the  phenomena  of  govern- 
mental institutions.  Indeed,  the  study  of  history 
for  such  a  purpose  was  not  popular  with  the 
advocates  of  the  rights  of  man;  it  was  not  in 
keeping  with  their  philosophy  to  go  beyond  the 
a  priori  principles  which  reason  had  set  up. 
Had  he  looked  into  history  for  an  explanation, 
he  would  have  seen  that  the  absolute  monarchy 
was  a  necessary  phase  in  the  development  of 
the  modem  nation.  A  single  strong  power  was 
needed  to  bring  order  out  of  the  chaos  which 
ensued  upon  the  breakdown  of  the  feudal 
system.    Likewise,  from  such  an  historical  view. 


i 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  41 

he  might  have  been  saved  from  the  error  of  identi- 
fying the  nature  of  all  governments  with  that  of 
the  absolute  monarchy  and  concluding  therefrom 
that  all  governments  were  destructive  of  liberty. 

Hamilton  was  far  better  versed  in  history,  had 
read  its  lessons  more  truly,  and  saw  more  clearly 
than  did  Jefferson  upon  what  the  real  character 
of  government  depended,  and  he  declared  that  a 
strong  central  government  would  not  be  danger- 
ous to  liberty  because  of  the  control  which  the 
people  exercised  over  it.  Wherefore  Jeiferson 
accused  him  of  being  a  monarchist,  and  of  desir- 
ing to  set  up  a  king. 

The  triimiph  of  Jefferson  in  1800  seemed  to 
presage  the  complete  overthrow  of  Hamilton's 
theories.  The  Federalist  party  survived  for  a 
few  years  thereafter  but  it  had  lost  its  vigor,  and 
died  a  none  too  honorable  death  after  the  Hart- 
ford Convention  of  1814.  It  has  often  been  said 
that  the  Democratic-Republican  party  swallowed 
up  the  Federahst,  and  the  acceptance  of  the  re- 
sults of  the  Federalist  policy  has  been  assigned  as 
the  cause.  But  the  j'eal  cause  of  the  disappejir- 
ance  of  the  Federalists  lay^eepgrjhan  this  sur- 
face acceptance  of  their  policy.  It  lay  in  the  f^pt 
that  the  triumphant  democracy  rejected  that  part  / 


4«  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

of  Jefferson's  theory  which  taught  that  govern- 
ment was  an  evil  and  dangerous  to  Hberty,  and 
accepted  the  view  of  Hamilton  that  government 
was  good  or  evil  according  to  the  forces  that  con- 
trolled it ;  accepting  Jefferson's  teaching  that  the 
will  of  the  people  was  good  and  should  be  su- 
preme, the  people  rejected  the  inconsistent  part 
of  his  theory  which  declared  their  will  bad  as  soon 
as  it  became  active  as  the  government. 

The  Jeffersonian  Democracy,  then,  won  its 
way  to  power_pn  a  platform  _wJiich  said  that  the 
JFedgraUsts-iiad  exalted  the  JFederaLgovernment 

jiid  that  it  must  hp  hr^in^jrHnw.  Yet  the  victory 
was  not  made  use  of  to  fulfil  the  purpose  pro- 
claimed. It  is  true  that  government  expendi- 
tures were  reduced  and  a  "chaste  reformation  of 
the  army  and  navy" — to  use  Jefferson's  own 
phrase — ^was  inaugurated,  but  close  upon  the 
heels  of  victory  came  the  daring  act  which  gave 
us  half  a  continent  at  the  expense  of  theories. 
Viewed  from  the  standpoint  of  the  Democratic- 
Republicans,  the  Purchase  of  Louisiana  was  the 

[greatest  stretch  of  Federal  power  that  had  yet 
taken  place,  for  nowhere  in  the  Constitution  was 
there  a  delegation  of  authority  to  acquire  terri- 
tory, and  such 'an  acquisition  could  with  ill  grace 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  43 

be  regarded  as  necessary  to  carry  out  other  pow- 
ers which  had  been  granted.  Jefferson  beheved 
that  his  act  was  unconstitutional  and  proposed 
the  adoption  of  an  amendment  to  the  Constitu- 
tion to  reheve  the  situation.  Congress  and  the 
country  accepted  the  Pui^chase  and  did  not  cavil 
about  the  Constitution  so  the  amendment  was 
not  pressed. 

The  attitude  of  the  Jeff ersonian  following  to- 
ward the  Judiciary  is  very  enlightening.  It  was 
the  only  branch  of  the  government  which  could 
not  be  captured  by  election  and  the  thought  of 
Chief  Justice  Marshall  and  his  associates,  the 
majority  of  whom  were  Federalists,  continuing 
in  that  branch  of  the  government  the  theories 
which  had  been  rejected  at  the  polls,  was  ex- 
tremely bitter.  Attacks  of  the  most  violent  char- 
acter were  made  upon. its  personnel  and  upon  the 
method  of  its  selection.  It  was  declared  to  be  an 
aristocratic  institution  and  out-  of  harmony  with 
a  democratic  form  of  government.  Moreover 
the  Federal  judiciary  came  into  conflict  with 
some  of  the  state  judiciaries  through  holding  that 
the  Federal  laws'  and  Constitution  were  supreme 
and  that  acts  of  the  states  must  give  way  before 
them.     There  has  been  much  discussion  in  the^^i 


44  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

course  of  our  history  concerning  the  right  of  the 
Supreme  Court  to  declare  laws  unconstitutional 
and  this  discussion  has  been  very  active  in  re- 
cent years.    Whatever  may  have  been  the  inten- 
tion of  the  makers  of  the  Constitution  in  this 
matter,  it  was  assumed  by  the  authors  of  the 
FederaUst  that  this  power  would  belong  to  the 
Court.    The  revival  of  interest  in  the  subject  may 
be  referred  to  the  growth  of  the  democratic  f eel- 
sj^         ing  in  the  country,  insisting  that  the  will  of  the 
^     people  should  be  supreme.    It  is  an  unconscious 
""      reflection  of  the  growing  popular  tendency  to 
sweep  away  all  barriers  and  to  change  a  repre- 


U 


sentative  republic  mto  a  jirect  democracy  and 
may  reasonably,  be  connected  with  the  demand 
for  the  recall  of  judges. 

Whatever  may  have  been  intended,  Chief  Jus- 
tice Marshall,  speaking  for  the  court  in  the  case 
of  Marbury  vs.  Madison,  in  the  year  1803, 
settled  the  matter  so  far  as  the  practice  has  been 
concerned.  Arguing  from  the  very  nature  of 
a  Federal  Union,  with  a  written  constitution  de- 
clared to  be  the  supreme  law  of  the  land,  he 
showed  that  the  power  to  declare  null  and  void 
all  laws  in  contravention  of  that  instrument,  was 
essential  to  its  maintenance.    The  Nullifiers  and 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  46 

Secessionists  declared  that  no  such  power  be- 
longed to  the  Supreme  Court.  Calhoun  believejL^^ 
that  to  put  it  in  the  hands  of  the^ourt  was  to 
make  the  Federal  government,  through  the  judi- 
cial branch,  the  judge  of  its  own  powers,  thus  j 
making  the  Government  and  not  the  Constitution/ 
the  measure  of  the  rights  that  had  been  delegated. 
But  Calhoun  and  all  those  who  followed  him  re- 
jected the  conception  that  the  new  union  was  a 
Federal  State.  To  them  it  was  still  a  Confeder- 
ation. For  more  than  a  quarter  of  a  century,  the 
Supreme  Court  under  the  leadership  of  Marshall, 
maintained  the  supremacy  of  the  Constitution, 
which  was  interpreted  in  harmony  with  the  grow- 
ing feeling  of  national  unity  and  as  the  instru- 
ment by  which  a  nation  had  been  created.  This 
was  the  spirit  that  lay  back  of  Hamilton's  finan- 
cial measures  and  theories  regarding  the  Union, 
and  the  hostility  of  the  Democrats  to  the  perpet- 
uation of  his  theories  through  judicial  interpreta- 
tion is  easily  underst6od.  The  discordant 
elements  in  the  national  life  had  not  yet  become 
sufficiently  antagonistic  to  bring  matters  to  a 
crisis.  The  struggle  was  confined  for  the  present 
within  the  Constitution  and  not  until  a  later  gen- 


46  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

eration  did  it  reach  the  point  of  demanding  a 
dissolution  of  the  Union. 

The  supremacy  of  the  people  under  Jefferson's 
guidance  was  a  protest  against  the  extremes  to 
which  the  Federalists  had  gone ;  it  was  the  procla- 
mation that  the  government  should  be  returned 
to  its  original  conception.  Confessedly  the  gov- 
ernment that  had  been  established  was  a  republic 
and  it  was  moreover  a  representative  republic. 
No  principle  was  more  fundamental  than  that 
it  rested  upon  the  consent  of  the  governed,  given 
through  their  representatives.  But  already  the 
/difficulty  of  securing  a  perfect  harmony  between 
/  the  acts  of  the  representatives  and  the  will  of 
I  their  constituents  was  felt  although  it  was  not 
N^ormulated  in  modem  terms.  When  the  govern- 
ment was  set  up,  it  seems  to  have  been  taken  for 
granted  that  the  mere  fact  of  election  at  specific 
intervals,  would  be  a  sufficient  guarantee  of  the 
responsibility  of  the  representatives  and  we  must 
remember  that  the  Convention  was  not  over  eager 
for  the  immediate  supremacy  of  the  popular  will. 
The  passions  of  the  people  were  far  more  fre- 
quently a  topic  of  discussion  than  their  virtues, 
and  it  was  thought  wise  so  to  frame  the  govern- 
ment that  ample  time  should  be  allowed  for  these 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  47 

passions  to  cool  before  they  could  be  realized  in 
action.  Yet  within  a  dozen  years  the  cry  was 
raised  that  the  will  of  the  people  must  be  supreme 
and  that  the  responsibility  to  electors  must  be 
recognized.  Jefferson,  in  one  of  his  radical 
aphorisms^^  declared  that  where  annual  elections  ) 
end^tyranny  begins,  and  it  was  accepted  as  a 
matter  of  course  that  the  correct  jnethod  of  secur- 
ing  responsibility  in^epresentatives^was  that  of 
election,  and  that  the  more  frequent  the  election 
the  more  direct  would  be  the  responsibiliiy.  It 
scarcely  seemed  open  to  question  that  in  this  way 
the  people  would  retain  complete  control  of  the 
government  and  be  able  to  realize  their  will  most 
effectually.  The  principle  was  accepted  as  car- 
dinal by  the  rising  democratic  spirit  and  its  appli- 
cation was  immediate  and  widespread. 

Offices  which  hitherto  had  been  appointive  were 
made  elective.  The  change  from  an  appointive  to 
an  elective  judiciary  in  almost  all  the  states  was 
due  to  this  idea  that  the  will  of  the  people  must 
be  made  effective  and  that  election  was  the  means 
through  which  it  could  be  accomplished.  The 
difficulty  of  amending  the  Federal  Constitution 
proved  sufficient  to  prevent  a  similar  change  in 
the  Federal  judiciary. 


48  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

Theag£lication  of  thfi_£rincrgle  of  responsibil- 
ity through  election,  combined  with  the  notion 
thaTgoveniniiaital  authority  should,  bje  divided 
up  in  order  to  be  safe,  led  to  a  decentralization 
of  power  in  the  states  which  has  rendered  them 
very  poor  agents  for  performing  the  tasks  which 
have  recently  been  laid  upon  them. 

The  execiitiye  authority  was  first  an  object  of 
suspicion ;  the  danger  to  liberty  was  thought  to  lie 
in  it,  with  the  result  that  the  local  units  of  gov- 
ernment, as  the  counties,  were  made  practically 
independent  of  state  authority  and  the  execution 
of  state  laws  was  in  most  instances  put  in  the 
hands  of  the  local  officials  who,  being  elected  by 
the  people  of  the  local  district,  drew  their  author- 
ity from  the  ultimate  source  of  all  power.  In  the 
absence  of  any  statutes  placing  them  under  the 
control  or  direction  of  the  state  officials,  there  was 
-an  entire  absence  of  administrative  co-ordina- 
tion and  control.  The  legal  responsibility  of 
the  local  official  was  to  a  general  law  regulating 
his  duties  and  his  political  responsibility  was  to 
his  constituents. 
\  This  decentralization  of  governmental  author- 
/  ity  was  carried  out,  also,  in  the  relation  of  state 
officials  to  each  other.    The  governor,  at  the  head 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  49 

of  the  state  administration,  was  deprived  of  all 
control  over  the  state  officials  who  would  natur- 
ally be  regarded  as  properly  subject  to  his  direc- 
tion. Instead  of  having  a  cabinet,  composed  of 
heads  of  departments  appointed  and  removed 
by  him,  the  governor  has  a  number  of  colleagues, 
each  elected  for  a  definite  term  by  the  same  con- 
stituency which  elects  the  governor.  He  has  no 
authority  over  them  and  their  responsibility  is 
only  to  the  laws  which  prescribe  their  duties  and 
to  the  people  of  the  state  by  whom  they  are 
elected. 

The  result  of  this  policy  of  decentralization 
and  election  to  secure  responsibility  has  been  to| 
rob  the  people  of  all  effective  control  over  most 
officials  and  to  make  the  officials  responsible  to  a 
party  organization  or  political  boss.  The  people 
as  a  whole  could  not  know  all  the  candidates  for 
all  the  offices  and  so  they  have  centered  their 
attention  upon  the  most  important  offices,  leaving 
the  choice  of  candidates  for  subordinate  offices 
to  the  party  boss.  Responsibility  is  thus  shifted 
froni  the  people  who  6lect  to  the  boss  who  nomi- 
nates, when  nomination  by  the  successful  party 
is  the  equivalent  of  election. 

At  the  outset  the  successful  operation  of  our 


60  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

highly  complex  system  of  government  was  largely 
due  to  the  simplicity  of  life.  Simplicity  either 
in  life  or  in  government  is  essential  for  the  suc- 
cess of  a  democracy.  Simplicity  of  life,  social, 
political,  and  economic,  was  decreasing  even  at 
the  time  the  Constitution  was  framed,  and  it 
has  continued  to  decrease  ever  since,  with  every 
new  invention  that  has  contributed  to  the  com- 
fort and  convenience  of  modem  life.  With  the 
development  of  a  capitalist  class,  of  a  society 
based  largely  on  the  possession  of  wealth,  of  great 
manufacturing  interests  involving  an  entirely 
new  system  of  production  and  new  systems  of 
transportation  and  communication;  with  the  in- 
crease of  population  and  its  concentration  in 
large  cities,  the  complexity  of  life  has  grown  to 
almost  terrifying  proportions.  While  the  life  of 
the  community  was  thus  becoming  more  and  more 
elaborate,  government  remained  complex.  That 
is  to  say,  our  forefathers  framed  a  system  of 
government  and  committed  that  framework  to 
writing,  and  that  the  definite  and  rigid  form  thus 
determined  might  not  be  lightly  changed,  they 
provided  a  cumberous  dnd  difficult  method  of 
V  amendment.  There  was  no  place  left  for  a  grad- 
ual and  natural  chauge  in  the  form  thus  rigidly 
set. 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  61   / 

It  was  comparatively  easy  to  amend  state  con- 
stitutions so  that  the  state  governments  would  be 
empowered  to  grapple  with  the  growing  com- 
plexity of  affairs  so  far  as  function  was  con- 
cerned. In  the  case  of  the  Federal  governmentV 
we  have  been  compelled  to  rely  almost  entirely] 
upon  the  interpretation  by  the  courts.  In  the  mail/ 
this  has  proved  reasonably  satisfactory,  thanks  to 
the  general  terms  used  in  the  wording  of  the  in- 
strument to  be  interpreted.  It  is  true,  the  courts 
have  recently  been  strenuously  attacked  for  their 
failure  to  keep  pace  with  the  times;  we  are  told 
that  these  august  personages  are  ossified,  that 
they  are  out  of  sympathy  with  the  needs  of  the 
new  social  conditions,  and  that  this  situation 
must  be  remedied.  On  the  whole,  however,  we 
are  to  be  congratulated  that  the  courts  have  been 
so  ready  to  enlarge  the  functions  of  the  govern- 
ment by  the  process  of  interpretation. 

While  it  has  been  relatively  easy  to  provide 
government  with  the  powers  necessary  for  the 
increasing  duties  forced  upon  it  by  the  develop- 
ment of  the  country,  thereJias_jaQt^been_an  equal 
facility Jnjnodifying  the  form.  It  has  remained 
fixed  in  all  essentials  and  fixed  in  complexity,  so 
that  we  now  have  an  elaborateness  both  of  life 


52  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

and  of  government.  The  result  has  been  a  poor 
and  inefficient  government,  inadequate  control 
by  the  people,  and  the  general  discouragement  of 
many  good  persons  who,  after  repeated  vain 
efforts  to  secure  an  accurate  reflection  of  public 
opinion  in  the  policies  of  government,  reached 
the  conclusion  that  democracy  itself  was  at  fault, 
when  the  real  trouble  was  with  the  particular 
form  through  which  the  democracy  sought  to  act. 
So  well  balanced  were  the  various  branches  of 
government  in  our  system  that  no  one  part  of  the 
mechanism  could  give  the  controlling  impetus  to 
the  rest.  The  logical  result  was  a  friction  of  the 
disagreeing  elements  upon  each  other,  save  in 
the  rare  instances  when  all  felt  impelled  in  the 
same  direction. 

This  difficulty  in  securing  action  was  in  entire 
accord  with  the  theory  of  a  very  restricted  sphere 
of  government  influence,  but  was  out  of  harmony 
with  the  actual  conditions..  Disaster  was  averted 
by  the  development  of  political  parties  which 
served  as  a  unifying  force  throughout  all  depart- 
ments of  government.  Parties  were  national  in 
their  extent  and  so  exerted  their  influence  all  the 
way  up  from  city  to  nation.  Thus  outside  of 
the  constitutional  arrangements,  there  was  de- 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  53 

veloped  an  agency  to  make  these  arrangements 
workable,  and,  in  the  main,  parties  have  per- 
formed this  function  satisfactorily. 

In  recent  years  we  have  found  much  fault  with 
parties  and  party  organization  and  have  at- 
tempted numerous  changes,  not  only  to  give  the 
people  control  of  them,  but  also  to  lessen  their 
power  and  influence. 

The  people  have  not  realized  that  the  form  of 
government  of  which  they  have  been  so  proud, 
and  the  principle  of  election  which  has  been  re-\ ; 
garded  as  fimdamental  in  democracy,  are  largely  V 
responsible  for  the  failure  to  achieve  the  suprem- 
acy of  their  will  in  affairs  of  government;  they 
have  not  realized  that  it  is  the  complex  nature  of 
our  government  which  has  made  it  so  difficult . 
for  the  people  to  govern  and  so  easy  for  smaller  I 
groups  to  govern  in  their  own  selfish  interests. 
Failing  to  appreciate  the  necessity  of  making  gov- 
ernment as  simple  as  possible,  almost  all  reforms 
seem  to  have  been  conceived  in  the  spirit  of  mak- 
ing government  more  complex.    The  theory  that 
the  separation  of  the  powers  of  government  was 
necessary  to  preserve  liberty  has  influenced  the 
whole  conception  of  government  and  consciously 
or  unconsciously,  complexity  has  been  added  to 


54  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

complexity  that  no  one  might  control  govern- 
ment and  crush  out  liberty.  Yet  this  very  com- 
plexity has  put  government  into  the  hands  of  the 
few  and  it  will  never  be  reclaimed  by  the  people 
until  it  has  been  made  simple.  Simplicity  is 
ll  €ssentialjo  responsibility  and  efficiency. 


CHAPTER  III 

THE   NEW   DEMOCRACY   OF  THE   WEST 

From  the  standpoint  of  our  present  exper- 
ience of  parties  it  seems  that  the  framers  of  the 
Constitution  were  singularly  blind  to  one  phase 
of  political  life  that  has  been  of  tremendous  con- 
sequence in  the  development  of  our  institutions. 
No  conception  of  a  system  of  parties  such  as  we 
know  had  developed  up  to  that  time  even  in  Eng- 
land nor  was  any  intimation  of  it  foreshadowed 
in  the  discussions  of  the  Constitutional  Conven- 
tion.  Much  was  said  at  the  time  about  factions 
and  the  evils  which  they  brought  upon  republics, 
but  not  a  word  about  parties  in  the  modem  sense. 
Perhaps  it  would  be  expecting  too  much  of  the 
"Fathers"  to  demand  that  they  should  have  fore- 
seen and  made  provision  for  this  new  phenome- 
non yet  there  were  already  present  the  elements 
out  of  which  parties  were  to  be  constructed.  Dur- 
ing the  War  of  the  Revolution  there  had  been 
Whigs  and  Tories,  and  after  the  war  was  ended 

55 


56  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

there  were  those  who  wanted  a  strong  central 
government  and  those  who  did  not;  those  who 
advocated  the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  and 
those  who  opposed  it.  When  the  Constitution 
had  been  adopted  and  discussion  arose  over  the 
nature  and  extent  of  its  powers ;  when  the  diver- 
gence of  views  between  Hamilton  and  Jefferson 
found  expression  upon  the  question  of  the  consti- 
tutionality of  the  National  Bank,  and  when  the 
doctrines  of  "loose"  and  "strict"  construction  of 
the  Constitution  were  formulated,  the  basis  of 
two  national  parties  was  laid.  It  was  natural 
that  many  of  those  who  had  opposed  a  stron 
central  government  and  many  who  had  opposed 
the  adoption  of  the  Constitution  should  find 
themselves  united  in  opposing  the  doctrine  of 
"loose  construction"  by  which  the  powers  of  the 
Federal  government  would  be  enlarged. 

The  leaders  of  the  respective  parties  wen 
Hamilton  and  Jefferson;  the  latter  had  a  true 
perception  of  the  political  truth  that  where  th 
decision  was  made  by  ballots,  the  victory  wouli 
rest  with  the  greatest  number  and  that  to  secur 
that  number  organization  was  necessary.  Ac 
cordingly  he  set  to  work  patiently  and  with  grea 
shrewdness  to  gather  together  for  concerted  ac 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  57 

tion  all  those  who  either  from  principle  or  from 
personal  consideration,  were  opposed  to  the  plans 
and  policies  of  the  government.  The  platform 
upon  which  the  fight  was  made  was  that  of  re- 
storing the  Federal  government  to  its  original 
limits  and  of  giving  the  control  of  it  into  the 
hands  of  the  people.  Jefferson  was  successful  in 
creating  the  impression  that  those  who  were  in 
control  of  the  government  were  administering  it 
without  regard  to  the  will  of  the  people. 

As  early  as  Jefferson's  first  election,  the  people 
were  sharply  divided  into  the  two  parties,  the 
Federalist  under  the  leadership  of  Hamilton 
and  the  Democratic-Republicans  under  that  of 
Jefferson.  The  election  of  Adams  four  years 
previously  made  it  evident  that  the  method  of 
choosing  a  president  could  not  be  successfully 
carried  out  under  the  plan  provided  by  the  Con- 
stitution. The  theory  of  indirect  election  by  the 
electors  was  that  by  this  method  the  best  man 
would  be  chosen.  It  seemed  reasonable  that  a 
choice  by  picked  men  would  be  better  than  a 
choice  by  the  whole  people,  but  by  the  election  of 
1800,  the  presidential  elector  had  lost  his  own 
freedom  of  choice  and  felt  bound  to  vote  for  his 
party's  choice. 


58  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

The  machinery  for  determining  the  party's 
choice  became  a  necessity  as  soon  as  parties  were 
formed  for  without  such  a  determination  there 
could  be  no  certainty  of  centering  the  party  vote 
upon  a  single  individual.  To  accomplish  this  end 
use  was  made  of  the  "caucus,"  which  has  early 
developed  as  a  means  of  focusing  the  votes  upon 
certain  candidates  for  local  offices.  Nomination 
by  caucus  of  the  members  of  the  legislatures  be- 
longing to  the  respective  parties  soon  became  an 
established  institution. 

It  was  not  long,  however,  before  the  Congres- 
sional Caucus  began  to  be  looked  upon  with  dilfj 
favor  as  depriving  the  people  of  all  real  choice. 
The  choice  of  candidates  being  in  the  hands  of  the 
caucus,  the  only  thing  left  for  the  people  to  do 
was  to  choose  between  the  candidates  presented. 
There  was  no  responsibility  to  the  people  on  the 
part  of  the  caucus  which  was  a  self -constituted 
body.    The  system  was  bad  from  the  standpoint 
of  a  government  by  the  people,  and  dissatisfac- 
tion   with    the    legislative    caucus    led    to    its 
abolition  and  in  its  place  was  substituted  the  \ 
nominating  convention  which  was  in  general  use  | 
by  the  close  of  Jackson's  second  administration.  1 
From  top  to  bottom  of  the  political  machinery 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  59 

the  convention  was  introduced  as  a  means  of  giv- 
ing expression  to  the  will  of  the  people  in  the 
choice  of  candidates.  The  nominating  conven- 
tion was  an  adaptation ;  it  was  the  making  use  of 
an  instrument  designed  to  express  the  will  of  the 
people  in  formulating,  adopting,  and  amending 
constitutions,  for  the  new  purpose  of  nominating 
candidates.  The  theory  in  each  case  was  that 
of  a  body  of  representatives  especially  chosen 
for  a  particular  purpose ;  the  members  of  the  con- 
vention being  chosen  directly  by  the  people  were 
regarded  as  incorporating  in  themselves  the 
whole  body  of  the  people  in  a  way  similar  to  the 
theory  of  the  British  Parliament  as  the  embodi- 
ment of  the  people  of  the  realm.  The  nominating 
convention  has  lasted  for  about  three-quarters  of 
a  century,  but  long  before  its  loss  of  power  and 
position,  it  ceased  either  to  be  or  to  be  regarded  as 
a  successful  means  for  the  expression  of  the  popu- 
lar will,  and  years  of  agitation  against  it  as  the 
bulwark  of  boss  rule  is  just  now  resulting  in  the 
introduction  of  the  direct  primary,  another  effort 
to  restore  the  control  to  the  people. 

Hand  in  hand  with  the  attempt  of  the  people 
to  organize  into  parties  and  to  construct  the  early 
party  machinery,  there  went  a  steady  movement 


60  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

toward  enlarging  the  democracy.  It  was  a  logical 
result  of  the  principle  of  popular  rule  that  there 
should  be  an  irresistible  demand  to  increase  the 
number  of  those  who  might  participate  actively 
in  the  affairs  of  government.  If  all  men  were 
born  ^Sp  and  equal  and  all  just  governments  de- 
rived their  powers  from  the  consent  of  the  gov- 
erned, what  justification  could  there  be  for  a 
property  qualification  either  for  voting  or  for 
holding  office?  How  could  the  profession  of  one 
religious  belief  qualify  and  that  of  another  ex- 
clude a  man  from  a  share  in  the  making*  of 
government?  Step  by  step,  the  restrictions  upon 
the  suffrage  and  office  holding  were  removed 
until  practical  manhood  suffrage  existed.  The 
logic  of  the  democratic  principle  of  popular  rule 
and  the  practical  considerations  of  party  politics 
worked  together  toward  a  widening  of  the  circle 
of  voters.  In  the  end  the  demands  of  party  were 
/of  far  greater  consideration  than  the  principle  of 
I  justice  in  securing  the  admission  of  wholly  uihI 
y  qualified  voters.  jBI 

From  the  earliest  days  of  English  colonial  set- 
tlement in  America  the  influence  of  climate  and 
the  fact  of  a  new  country  to  be  subdued  to  the 
uses  of  man,  were  all  on  the  side  of  democracy. 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  61 

Where  land  was  to  be  had  for  the  taking  and 
where  fish  and  game  abounded,  it  was  difficult  to 
maintain  any  sort  of  social  distinctions.  The  ad- 
venturous spirits  moved  on  and  set  up  new  com- 
munities in  which  life  might  be  raw  and  crude 
but  in  which,  for  that  very  reason,  a  rough 
equality  was  found. 

With  the  conclusion  of  peace  and  the  recog- 
nition that  the  country  as  far  west  as  the  Mis- 
sissippi was  open  to  settlement,  a  steady  migra- 
tion set  in.     Economic  conditions  were  bad  at 
the  close  of  the  war  and  many  felt  driven  to  try 
their  fortune  in  new  places.    West  of  the  AUe- 
ghanies,  these  new  communities  rapidly  devel- 
oped into  such  consequence  that  territories  and 
then  states  were  formed  in  quick  succession  and 
^admitted  to  the  Union.    The  spirit  of  these  states 
[was  very  different  from  that  of  the  original  ones 
Jong  the  Atlantic  seaboard.     It  was  more  na- 
[tional  and  less  local.     They  knew  no  existence 
outside  of  the  Union  and  the  Union  was  of  more 
[consequence  to  them  than  any  individual  state. 
iThe  rough  social  equality  and  the  strong  spirit 
of  self-reliance  developed  by  frontier  life,  com- 
|bmed  with  their  love  of  freedom,  produced  a 
new  attitude  toward  government.    Manhood  suf- 


62  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

frage  existed  almost  from  the  beginning;  but  it 
was  in  respect  to  office  holding,  to  the  business  of 
carrying  on  the  government,  that  the  distinctive 
attitude  of  these  new  communities  was  most  evi- 
dent. Their  government  was  as  simple  as  their 
life  and  the  belief  soon  arose  that  any  average 
man  was  capable  of  carrying  on  the  business  of 
government.  Special  training  as  a  qualification 
for  government  service  was  imknown.  In  a  coun- 
try where  there  was  slight  opportunity  for  educa- 
tion it  was  not  unnatural  that  it  should  have  been 
deemed  of  little  consequence  in  affairs  of  govern- 
ment. Thus  in  the  Western  states  a  new  theory 
of  democracy  was  being  formulated  and  prac- 
ticed, and  in  course  of  time  it  passed  out  of  the 
circumscribed  limits  of  the  new  states  of  the 
West  and  made  itself  master  of  the  nation. 

Jefferson  was  a  philosopher  who  took  pleasure 
in  speculation  and  the  formulation  of  ideas  in 
telling  phrases.  He  was  a  lover  of  the  Rights  of 
Man  and  of  the  whole  revolutionary  propaganda 
of  his  time.  He  was  cultured  and  refined  and  the 
democratic  doctrine  which  he  advocated  had  some- 
what of  the  flavor  of  his  refinement.  There  waafll 
nothing  crude  about  it  and  it  soon  attracted  to 
itself  the  best  talent  of  the  country.     Though 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  GS 

the  Federalists  predicted  dire  disaster  from  the 
success  of  Jefferson  in  the  election  in  1800,  their 
forebodings  were  not  justified.  Government  and 
society  moved  on  much  as  before  and  it  was  evi- 
dent that  the  new  order  of  things  differed  but 
slightly  from  the  old;  the  chief  difference  lay  in 
the  fact  that  a  new  set  of  men  was  in  office  and 
not  in  anj^  new  or  startling  change  in  the  course 
or  conduct  of  government.  It  has  become  a  com- 
monplace of  our  history  that  the  Democratic- 
Republican  party  absorbed  the  Federalist  party 
within  a  dozen  years.  This  could  not  have  taken 
place  if  the  successful  party  had  not  been  com- 
posed of  the  same  kind  of  men,  thinking  in  the 
main  the  same  kind  of  ideas,  and  led  by  the 
familiar  figures  of  the  days  of  the  Revolution. 
There  was  no  real  break  with  the  past  when 
Jefferson  was  elected.  There  was  no  new  ele- 
ment introduced  into  pohtics  and  no  untried  prin- 
ciples. There  was  only  a  harking  back  to  the 
principles  of  the  Declaration  of  Independence 
and  the  ideas  of  the  "Fathers."  For  all  that  Jef- 
ferson had  to  say  about  the  people  as  the  source 
of  power  and  authority,  there  was  a  strong  feel- 
ing that  the  leaders,  men  of  training  and  educa- 
tion and  social  position,  should  direct  the  masses. 


64  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

It  was  a  democracy  in  which  theoretically  the 
majority  ruled  but  in  which  in  practice  the  lead- 
ers were  to  direct  an  acquiescent  majority. 

The  representatives  of  the  new  spirit  of  the 
country  began  to  make  their  appearance  in  the 
national  life  just  before  the  War  of  1812.  In 
fact  the  declaration  of  that  war  was  due  to  them. 
Clay,  Calhoun,  and  Crawford  were  among  the 
new  leaders  who  appeared  upon  the  scene,  and 
the  old  leaders  of  the  generation  of  the  Revolu- 
tion were  never  again  in  full  control.  It  was 
these  new  men  and  their  new  spirit  that  forced 
President  Madison  into  the  war,  although  it  was 
known  to  be  against  his  inclination.  The  war 
itself  brought  into  national  prominence  the  man 
who,  a  decade  later,  was  to  typify  in  himself  and 
crystalize  about  himself  the  social  and  political 
democracy  of  the  West.  Andrew  Jackson,  the 
military  hero,  was  eclipsed  by  Old  Hickory,  the 
friend  and  champion  of  the  people. 

The  new  leaders  were  far  more  national  in  their 
i  feeling  than  was  the  older  generation.  The 
United  States  meant  more  to  them  than  any 
individual  state.  They  had  grown  up  under  thc^l 
influence  of  that  well  nigh  reverential  respect  in 
which  the  Constitution  had  come  to  be  held.  Thej 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  65 

effect  of  the  war  was  to  strengthen  the  feeling 
of  national  unity  and  solidarity.  As  against  the 
enemy  it  was  one  country  and  national  patriotism 
had  been  awakened  as  only  a  war  can  awaken  it. 
Henceforward  for  a  generation  the  thoughts  of 
men  turned  toward  the  greatness  of  the  country 
as  a  whole.  Some  vision  of  the  Future  began 
to  dawn  on  them,  of  a  country  stretching  from 
ocean  to  ocean  and  a  power  which  should  rival 
any  of  the  old  world.  This  spirit  of  national 
patriotism  had  a  tremendous  influence  upon  the 
great  struggle  of  the  Civil  War  in  which  the 
principle  of  democracy,  that  the  majority  shall 
rule,  was  to  be  determined. 

The  War  of  1812  was  the  first  great  impulse 
[toward  the  spirit  of  a  nation.  The  way  had  been 
prepared  by  the  course  of  development  which 
[had  preceded,  but  the  war  brought  home  the  con- 
(sciousness  of  it.  At  its  conclusion  there  set  in  a 
period  of  peace  in  domestic  politics,  called  the 
Era  of  Good  Feeling,  which  reached  its  climax 
under  Monroe  and  was  due  to  the  absence  of  any 
real  issues.  The  old  lines  of  division  had  grad- 
ually lost  their  sharpness  as  the  Democratic-Re- 
publicans adopted  and  put  into  operation  the 
principles  of  the  Federalists.     The  two  parties 


^ 


66  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

slowly  amalgamated  mitil,  after  the  War  of 
1812,  only  one  party  was  left.  The  old  issues 
upon  which  the  first  great  party  struggle  had 
,  been  waged,  had  centered  around  the  powers  of 
the  Federal  government.  The  Federalists  be- 
lieved in  a  "loose  construction"  of  the  Constitu- 
tion in  order  that  the  national  government  might 
have  adequate  power  and  authority.  The  Demo- 
cratic-Republicans had  driven  them  out  of  power 
by  advocating  the  opposite  doctrines.  Yet  the 
principles  of  the  Federalists  were  those  which 
triumphed  in  the  end.  The  force  of  circum- 
stances, the  mere  fact  of  being  in  power,  the 
constant  growth  of  the  Federal  government  in 
the  favor  and  affection  of  the  people,  the  deci- 
sions of  the  Supreme  Court  under  the  leadership 
of  Marshall  establishing  the  national  character  of 
the  Union,  and  finally  the  War  of  1812,  were 
forces  of  development  which  outweighed  all 
party  platforms  and  brought  about  a  general 
acceptance  of  Federalist  principles.  It  was  a 
period  when  the  worship  of  the  Constitution  and 
of  the  Republican  form  of  government  was  at 
its  height.  New  issues  and  new  lines  of  cleavage 
lay  just  ahead  but  for  a  time  harmony  prevailed. 
This  period  however  was  brief.    In  the  absence 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  67 

of  adequate  issues  to  separate  the  people  into 
parties,  there  sprang  up  parties  based  upon  per- 
sonahties, — factions  rather  than  parties,  center- 
ing about  the  leaders.  There  was  the  party  of 
Clay,  of  Adams,  of  Calhoun  and  of  Jackson,  and 
the  election  of  1824  was  fought  out  among  these 
factions.  Andrew  Jackson  received  the  largest 
number  of  votes  in  the  electoral  college  but  not 
a  majority  of  all  the  votes  cast,  and  when  the 
election  was  thrown  into  the  House  of  Represen- 
tatives, a  combination  of  Clay  and  Adams  re- 
sulted in  the  election  of  the  latter.  Thereupon 
the  Jackson  men  raised  the  cry  of  "bargain  and 
corruption,"  inasmuch  as  Clay  was  made  Secre- 
tary of  State.  This  bargain  and  corruption,  it 
was  claimed,  had  resulted  in  defeating  the  clearly 
expressed  will  of  the  people.  Jackson  had  re- 
ceived the  largest  number  of  votes  and  therefore 
should  have  been  chosen  by  the  House.  A  fail- 
ure to  choose  him  was  a  deliberate  thwarting  of 
the  people.  It  was  the  grossest  violation  of  the 
sacred  principle  of  democracy;  it  was  an  insult 
to  the  people  and  what  was  of  no  less  conse- 
quence, to  the  Hero  of  New  Orleans  himself.  Re- 
venge would  be  doubly  sweet  as  vindicating  both 
the  people  and  Jackson.    Thus  was  the  hue  and 


68  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

cry  raised  by  the  Jackson  men.  They  so  filled 
the  public  mind  with  their  view  of  the  transaction 
that  it  was  not  long  until  the  election  of  Jackson 
became  identified  with  the  vindication  of  democ- 
racy and  the  will  of  the  people.  Popular  rule, 
they  said,  was  endangered  by  such  a  betrayal  and 
only  the  sternest  of  rebukes  would  prove  effective. 
Jackson  was  an  ideal  figure  around  which  to 
center  a  fight  in  behalf  of  the  people.  He  was 
identified  in  life  and  in  feeling  with  the  new  de- 
mocracy of  the  West,  a  democracy  entirely 
different  from  that  of  Jefferson.  It  was  crude 
while  that  was  finely  finished;  it  was  based  on 
wide  suffrage  and  frontier  ideals,  while  that 
rested  upon  a  restricted  suffrage  and  the  best 
colonial  traditions.  ^The  one  was  a  real  reflection 
of  the  opinions  ani  feelings  of  the  masses,  the 
other  of  the  leaders  of  a  limited  number.  Jack- 
son was  reared  amidst  conditions  which  developed 
the  rougher  qualities  of  his  nature.  His  boyhood 
witnessed  poverty,  the  loss  of  parents,  the  misfor- 
tunes of  war;  his  early  manhood,  the  roistering 
dissipations  of  the  times.  After  pursuing  the 
study  of  the  law,  he  left  his  home  in  North 
Carolina  and  crossed  the  mountains  to  become 
prosecuting  attorney  for  the  Mero  district,  sub- 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  69 

sequently  a  part  of  Tennessee.  Settling  at  Nash- 
ville, Jackson  soon  established  a  reputation  for 
courage  and  aggressiveness  which  gave  him  high 
place  in  a  community  in  which  these  were  the 
virtues  most  admired.  Physical  strength  and 
personal  bravery  were  important,  if  not  abso- 
lutely necessary,  for  distinction  in  life  on  the 
frontier.  Jackson  prosecuted  the  criminals,  en- 
gaged in  tests  of  strength,  raced  horses  and 
fought  game  cocks,  killed  his  man  in  a  duel,  mar- 
ried, prospered,  was  Tennessee's  first  Represen- 
tative in  Congress,  Senator,  Justice  of  the 
Supreme  Court  of  Tennessee,  and  Major-general 
of  Militia  by  the  time  he  was  thirty-seven.  He 
then  retired  from  public  life  to  become  a  farmer 
and  a  merchant  and  but  for  the  War  of  1812 
might  have  remained  an  obscure  figure  in  a  new 
and  rough  community. 

When  war  was  declared  Jackson,  as  Major- 
general  of  Militia,  achieved  undying  military 
reputation  in  the  defeat  of  the  British  at  New 
Orleans.  This  military  reputation  was  carefully 
cultivated  and  kept  alive  by  the  war  with  the 
Creek  Indians,  so  that  with  the  help  of  a  skillful 
political  manager,  Jackson  was  a  national  figure 
at  the  Presidential  election  of  1824.    He  himself 


70  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

protested  that  he  was  too  old  to  enter  the  race 
for  the  Presidency,  but  having  once  yielded  to 
the  persuasion  of  his  friends  and  become  a  candi- 
date, all  the  fire  and  tenacity  of  his  spirit  were 
enlisted  in  the  fight.  Upon  his  defeat,  as  earlier 
narrated,  the  desire  for  vengeance  wiped  out  all 
personal  objections  and  henceforth  his  career 
was  directed  toward  the  overthrow  of  the  men 
and  forces  that  had  opposed  him. 

So  much  has  been  said  about  the  career  of 
Jackson  because  it  makes  intelligible  the  trend  of 
the  popular  movement.  It  shows  the  manner  of 
life  that  gave  birth  to  the  new  ideas  which 
Jackson's  election  introduced  into  the  national 
government.  There  is  no  possibility  of  under- 
standing these  ideas  unless  we  see  behind  them 
the  social  and  political  conditions  out  of  which 
they  developed.  Jackson  was  truly  a  man  of  his 
times ;  he  is  not  one  of  the  great  figures  of  history 
who  have  risen  superior  to  their  surroundings; 
he  was  great  because  he  was  the  embodiment  of 
his  age.  The  type  of  character  developed  under 
these  conditions  has  been  sufficiently  indicated. 
Self-reliance,  an  ability  to  supply  oneself  with 
the  ordinary  necessities  of  life,  a  great  skill  with 
tools  and  weapons,  a  readiness  to  turn  one's  hand 


I 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  71 

to  almost  any  occupation,  a  facility  in  passing 
from  one  vocation  to  another;  all  these  charac- 
teristics had  their  effect  upon  men's  attitude  to- 
ward government.  That,  too,  was  something  to 
which  most  men  might  turn  with  a  reasonable 
degree  of  success,  for,  like  the  rest  of  the  frontier 
life,  it  also  was  simple.  This  conception  of  gov- 
ernment was  fundamental  in  the  whole  attitude 
of  this  generation  and  was  the  immediate  product 
of  the  social  and  economic  conditions  of  life  which 
the  settlement  of  the  new  country  had  produced. 
It  was  a  Western  in  contrast  with  the  Eastern 
democracy  of  which  Jefferson  was  the  representa- 
tive. The  spirits  of  the  two  periods  are  as  dif- 
ferent in  character  and  temperament  as  were 
Jackson  and  Jefferson. 

With  the  defeat  of  Jackson  in  1824,  the  period 
of  the  single  party  came  to  an  end.  This  era  was 
abnormal  in  the  life  of  a  democracy  and  it  was 
soon  followed  by  a  sharp  division  among  the 
people.  At  first  the  supporters  of  Jackson  were 
known  simply  as  "Jackson  men,"  but  in  a  short 
time  they  took  for  themselves  the  popular  desig- 
nation of  Democrats — ^that  part  of  the  name  of 
the  Jeffersonian  Democratic-Republican  party 
which  had  fallen  into  disuse.    This  very  fact  was 


n  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

significant.  They  claimed  to  be  the  party  of  the 
people  and  to  represent  the  great  mass  of  the 
plain  folk.  In  time  the  party  came  to  represent 
the  opposition  of  the  masses  to  the  classes.  Jack- 
son's fight  upon  the  Bank  was  felt  to  be  for  the 
freedom  of  the  great  body  of  the  people  whom  the 
Democrats  professed  to  believe  were  in  danger  of 
being  permanently  enslaved  by  the  moneyed 
classes. 

When  Jefferson  was  elected  in  1800  there  were 
many  predictions  of  dreadful  calamities  ahead. 
The  Federalists  proclaimed  that  the  stability  and 
permanency  of  our  institutions  were  menaced 
by  the  success  of  the  radicals.  Yet  these  prophe- 
cies were  not  fulfilled.  Beginning  with  the  con- 
ciliatory attitude  of  Jefferson's  inaugural,  the 
causes  for  alarm  were  rapidly  dissipated,  for  it 
was  soon  realized  that  the  control  of  the  govern- 
ment was  in  the  hands  of  the  same  social  class. 
When  the  Federalist  party  had  disappeared  and 
the  Era  of  Good  Feeling  set  in,  the  men  in  control 
of  the  government  undoubtedly  felt  more  secure 
in  their  tenure  of  office  than  would  have  been  the 
case  had  there  been  a  sharp  division  of  parties. 
The  result  of  this  feeling  of  security  led  by  imper- 
ceptible degrees  to  the  attitude  that  the  office  in 


ANrrfMAJORJTY  RULE  73 

some  way  belonged  to  the  man  and,  as  a  conse- 
quence, the  conception  of  office  as  a  public  trust 
was  weakened  in  the  minds  of  office  holders.  Long 
continuance  in  office  under  such  conditions  pro- 
duced a  laxity  in  moral  standards  that  led  to 
much  inefficiency  if  not  corruption.  To  attack 
this  state  of  affairs  was  good  politics  and  the 
Jackson  men  lost  no  time  in  raising  the  issue  in 
behalf  of  the  people.  Had  they  not  been  de- 
frauded by  the  bargain  and  corruption  between 
Adams  and  Clay,  the  imholy  alliance,  in  the  bit- 
ing invective  of  John  Randolph  of  Roanoke,  "of 
the  Puritan  and  the  Blackleg,  of  Blifil  and 
Black  George"?  And  were  not  these  men 
the  very  ones  who  had  fattened  on  office  until 
they  regarded  it  as  their  right  and  any  control 
by  the  people  as  an  im justifiable  interference? 

However  little  or  much  the  Jackson  men  be- 
lieved such  a  condition  to  exist,  they  gave  it  a 
prominent  place  in  their  party  platforms.  To 
rail  at  the  opposition  on  the  score  of  indijfiference 
to  the  will  of  the  majority  and  for  holding  them- 
selves superior  to  the  desires  of  the  common 
people,  was  as  popular  with  the  masses  as  abus- 
ing the  Federalists  for  monarchists  had  been  in 
Jackson's  time  or  as  attacking  Wall  Street  and 


74  AMERICA]SM|OVEB%|^T  ^ 

the  Trusts  Ujn  our  own  day.  This  ide^^hat  the 
office-holding  classes  had  become  indifferent  and 
had  assumed  to  themselves  superior  wisdom  be- 
cause they  were  office  holders,  provoked  strong 
^conderonation  among  men  who  regarded  the  busi- 
ness of  government  as  one  which  the  average  man 
could  easily  master.  The  leaders  of  the  new 
movement  were  Western  men  and  they  had  a 
certain  contempt  for  the  refinements  of  the  East, 
for  that  in  which  they  were  themselves  lacking. 
It  was  crass  provincialism  but  there  was  great 
strength  in  it.  Undoubtedly,  too,  the  defeat  of 
Jackson  in  1824  was  made  to  seem  due  to  the 
fact  that  he  was  new  and  from  the  West  and  of 
the  plain  people.  And  as  the  champion  of  their 
rights,  which  had  been  so  grossly  disregarded  in 
his  defeat,  he  made  his  campaign.  By  1828  the 
popular  party  was  fairly  well  solidified  and  the 
triumph  of  the  people's  candidate  was  over- 
whelming. 

It  is  difficult  for  us  to  realize  how  strong  was 
the  feeling  that  with  Jackson's  election  the  peo- 
ple had  again  come  into  their  own.  We  can  gain 
some  conception  of  it  from  the  way  in  which  they 
flocked  to  Washington  and  took  possession  of 
the  White  House;  from  the  way  in  which  the 


I 


'MAJql^TY  RULE  75 

refinements  of  life  were  swept  awdjBind  the  sim- 
ple and  often  crude  fashion  of  the  West  intro- 
duced.     In    striking    contrast    to    Jefferson's 
election,  Jackson's  entry  into  office  signalized  the 
introduction  of  a  new  order  of  men  into  the  con^ 
trol  of  the  national  life — men  from  an  entirely- 
different  social  class,  men  more  distinctly  of  the 
people.    The  Jeffersonian  democracy  was  one  of 
theory,  the  Jacksonian  of  practice.    The  former 
had  its  origin  in  the  philosophy  of  a  radical  ; 
thinker,  the  latter  in  the  manner  of  life  of  a  i 
frontier  people. 

Again  as  in  1800,  the  better  classes  socially 
were  alarmed  at  the  hordes  of  democrats  who 
poured  into  Washington,  both  those  who  had 
been  elected  and  those  who  sought  appointments. 
Again  grave  fear  was  felt  over  the  radical 
changes  which  the  new  government  might  under- 
take, and  this  time  the  fears  were  not  without 
foundation.  The  only  effect  of  Jefferson's  elec- 
tion had  been  a  little  less  formality  in  intercourse, 
a  little  greater  simplicity  in  the  tone  of  life. 
Jackson  brought  in  radical  changes  in  the  policy 
of  conducting  the  government  and  in  the  social 
and  political  life  of  the  Capitol.  In  the  first 
place,  it  was  necessary  to  make  the  people  feel 


76  AMERICAN  GOVER]^^^^     ^ 


'1^ 

eallvii 


in  a  concrete  way  that  they  were  reallyin  control; 
that  the  government,  the  offices,  the  buildings, 
all  belonged  to  them.  We  have  referred  to  the 
throngs  which  poured  into  Washington  and  how 
they  took  possession  of  the  White  House.  But 
this  would  not  have  been  sufficient.  More  tangi- 
ble rewards  were  demanded  and  the  principle  that 
"to  the  victor  belonged  the  spoils"  found  ready 
acceptance.  It  both  furnished  the  necessary  re-  j 
wards  and  removed  from  office  those  who  had  « 
been  so  bitterly  attacked  as  heedless  of  the  popu- 
lar will  and  corrupt  in  their  security.  It  became 
a  recognized  and  generally  accepted  theory  of  the 
Democrats  that  "rotation  in  office"  was  essential 
to  a  democracy.  By  its  application  the  feeling  of 
ownership  of  office,  the  disregard  of  the  people, 
and  the  ensuing  corruption,  could  not  develop  be- 
cause of  lack  of  time.  "To  the  victor  belonged  the 
spoils"  was  a  practical  platform  of  which  the 
principle  of  "rotation  in  office"  was  the  theoreti-  "^ 
cal  support.  Both  were  in  accord  with  that  deep 
feeling  of  self-reliance  and  general  efficiency 
which  made  the  average  man  think  himself  quite 
competent  for  the  simple  business  of  government. 
In  yet  another  way  Jackson  made  his  election 
the  triumph  of  the  people,  for  if  they  had  been 


I 


fl^D  MAJORITY  RULE  77 

tricked  and  defrauded  by  his  defeat,  they  had 
been  gloriously  vindicated  by  his  election ;  if  they 
had  been  deprived  of  their  rights  then,  they  had 
come  into  them  now.  He  was  their  direct  repre- 
sentative and  as  such  he  proceeded  to  speak  and 
act.  In  him  the  will  of  the  people  was  incorpo- 
rated. To  such  an  extent  was  this  carried  out 
that  the  Executive  assumed  proportions  in  the 
scheme  of  government  never  before  attained. 
We  are  now  f  amihar  with  the  view  that  the  Presi- 
dent is  the  direct  representative  of  the  whole 
people  and  as  such  is  more  influential  than  Con- 
gress or  the  Supreme  Court,  but  in  Jackson's  day 
it  was  a  novelty  which  excited  alarm.  It  was 
feared  that  such  a  conception  of  the  position  of 
the  President,  if  applied  to  the  scheme  of  gov- 
ernment, would  upset  the  balance  so  carefully 
planned.  Jackson  boldly  claimed  an  equal  right 
with  the  Supreme  Court  to  interpret  the  Consti- 
tution and  Congress  was  overshadowed  by  his 
great  strength  as  the  popular  representative. 

The  democracy  had  at  length  felt  the  force  of 
the  power  of  numbers,  and  the  rule  of  the  major- 
ity became  the  cardinal  tenet  of  faith. 


CHAPTER  IV 

CIVIL  WAR  AND   MAJORITY  RULE 

From  the  time  of  the  adoption  of  the  Consti- 
tution there  has  been  a  line  of  cleavage  rmming 
through  the  people,  separating  them  into  two 
parties,  one  desiring  a  strong  central  govern- 
ment and  a  liberal  construction  of  the  Constitu- 
tion and  the  other  a  weak  central  government 
and  a  strict  construction  of  the  Constitution. 
The  latter  was  at  first  composed  of  those  who 
believed  in  as  little  government  as  possible  and 
of  those  who  sought  to  exalt  the  states  rather  than 
the  nation. 

In  the  Constitutional  Convention  the  party  in 
favor  of  maintaining  the  rights  of  the  states  as 
against  the  Union  which  they  were  seeking  to 
establish,  was  so  strong  that  it  threatened  ta^l 
disrupt  the  Convention  and  prevent  the  forma-^" 
tion  of  a  constitution.  When  the  new  govern- 
ment was  inaugurated,  more  than  one  state  felt 
itself  superior  to  the  central  government.     De- 

78 


d 


.      MAJORITY  RULE  79 

spite  the  rapid  growth  of  the  latter  iirthe  respect 
and  affection  of  the  people,  there  remained  a 
strong  element  always  ready  to  seize  upon  this 
feeling  of  state  loyalty  and  to  use  it  against  the 
nation.    Jefferson,  ardent  advocate  of  local  self- 
government,  found  it  convenient  to  make  use  of 
this  feeling  against  the  Alien  and  Sedition  Acts 
through  the  Virginia  and  Kentucky  Resolutions. 
In  the  draft  which  he  prepared  for  introduction 
in  the  Kentucky  legislature,  the  right  of  a  single 
state  to  nullify  a  law  of  the  Federal  government 
was  proclaimed,  but  the   Kentucky  legislature 
went  no  further  than  to  declare  that  the  states  had 
H  such  a  right.    It  is  doubtful  if  Jefferson  would 
Bthave  taken  such  a  radical  position  after  his  own 
^m  presidency  and  his  intimate  friend  and  successor 
^Kin  the  presidential  chair,  James  Madison,  was  at 
^Jgreat  pains  to  prevent  Jefferson's  name  being 
^Hlent  to  the  support  of  Nullification  when  Calhoun 
^P  made  the  issue  acute.    But  whether  he  woulcriQf 
not,  the  name  and  fame  of  Jefferson  were  made  to 
do  service  in  defense  of  this  doctrine,  so  destruc-l 
tive  of  the  supremacy  of  the  Union  and  so  hostile! 
to  the  principle  of  majority  rule. 

It  was  the  tariff  policy  of  the  nation  which 
first  brought  a  clash  between  the  nation  and  a 


80  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

state.  From  its  inception  the  tariff  had  been 
proclaimed  as  a  measure  for  the  protection  of 
the  industries  of  the  country,  but  it  was  not  until 
the  War  of  1812  had  produced  a  large  crop  of 
infant  industries  that  its  protective  character  be- 
came pronounced.  The  factories  which  sprang 
up  as  a  result  of  the  war  were  located  in  the  North 
and  the  benefit  of  the  tariff  accrued  to  that  sec- 
tion, while  the  South,  as  an  agricultural  com- 
munity, found  itself  sending  the  produce  of  its 
fields,  by  this  time  given  up  almost  wholly  to 
cotton,  to  a  foreign  market  and  purchasing  its 
manufactured  articles  at  a  price  determined  by 
the  tariff.  The  situation  came  to  be  regarded  as 
iniquitous  and  the  tariff  as  a  legalized  means  of 
robbing  the  South. 

John  C.  Calhoun  stands  out  as  the  great 
protagonist  of  the  South  and  its  "peculiar  insti- 
tutions," but  he  is  likewise  far  above  his  con- 
temporaries as  a  constructive  political  thinker. 
In  his  fight  in  behalf  of  the  South  he  developed  ai 
theory  both  of  the  nature  of  the  Union  and  of 
democracy,  which,  though  rejected  by  the  coun- 
try as  a  whole,  formed  the  basis  of  Southern 
action  until  the  close  of  the  Civil  War.  In  his 
early  political  career  Calhoun  was   an  ardent 


i 


I 


I 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  81 

advocate  of  the  War  of  1812,  a  supporter  of  a 
protective  tariff,  and  a  defender  of  the  policy  of 
internal  improvements,  all  indicative  of  a  strong 
national  feeling.  In  course  of  time,  however,  the 
economic  policy  of  the  government  assumed  a 
tyrannical  aspect  in  his  eyes  in  view  of  the  re- 
sults which  it  was  producing  in  South  Carohna 
and  the  other  cotton  raising  states.  He  himself 
tells  us  that  he  turned  to  the  Constitution  to  find 
a  remedy  for  this  deplorable  state  of  affairs.  The 
result  of  his  search  he  gave  to  the  world  in  the 
theory  of  the  Constitution  as  a  compact  and  of 
the  Union  as  a  Confederation.  The  practical 
application  of  this  theory  was  the  NulHfication 
by  South  Carolina  in  1832  of  a  tariff  law  of  the 
United  States,  and  Secession  a  generation  later. 
Briefly  stated  the  theory  of  Nullification  rested 
upon  the  assumption  that  the  Constitution  was  a 
contract  or  a  compact,  entered  into  by  the  states 
as  sovereign  political  bodies;  by  its  terms  a  gov- 
ernment had  been  established  and  certain  powers 
had  been  conferred  upon  it  in  order  that  it  might 
serve  as  the  common  agent  of  the  states  in  the 
matters  which  had  been  delegated  to  it.  From 
this  standpoint  the  Federal  government  was  not 
the  government  of  a  state,  separate  from  each 


i. 


82  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

state  yet  compounded  of  them  all;  it  was  merely 
the  organ  of  the  states  for  the  performance  of 
special  tasks.  If  any  question  should  arise  con- 
cerning the  duty  or  the  right  of  the  Federal 
government  to  perform  a  particular  task,  the 
decision  could  not  properly  be  given  by  the  Fed- 
eral government  itself,  through  any  of  its  de- 
partments, since  this  would  make  it  the  judge 
of  its  own  powers  and  make  its  wish  and  not  the 
Constitution  the  measure  of  these  powers.  The 
decision  could  be  given  only  by  the  states  through 
the  process  of  amendment.  If  any  state  felt 
that  a  law  passed  by  Congress  was  in  violation  of 
the  Constitution,  it  might  nullify  that  law  within 
its  boundaries  and  it  would  remain  null  and  void 
'if  the  states,  by  the  process  of  amendment,  did 
'  not  expressly  confer  the  power  in  question  upon 
the  Federal  government. 

The  attempt  by  South  Carolina  to  apply  the 
theory  of  Nullification  showed  that  in  practice  a 
very  small  minority  of  the  people  would  be  able 
to  control  the  action  of  a  large  majority.  This 
result  was  both  undemocratic  and  in  direct  oppo- 
sition to  the  strong  national  feeling  which  had 
been  developing.  Jackson  met  the  issue  squarely 
in  his  proclamation  when  he  declared  that  he 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  83 

would  use  the  armed  force  of  the  nation  to  compel 
the  submission  of  South  Carolina,  but  a  com- 
promise was  arranged  in  Congress  by  which 
South  Carolina  secured  the  reduction  of  the  tariff 

;  which  she  had  sought.  It  might  have  saved  the 
country  from  the  Civil  War  if  the  question  had 
been  settled  without  a  resort  to  compromise. 

Though  the  difficulty  was  adjusted  the  ques- 
tion which  had  been  raised  had  not  been  settled. 
Calhoun  saw  this  and  felt  the  need  for  a  more 
thorough  theoretical  establishment  of  the  view 
which  he  had  elaborated  regarding  the  nature  of 
the  Union.  There  was  need,  too,  for  the  refuta- 
tion of  the  view  which  interpreted  democracy  as 
the  rule  of  the  numerical  majority.  Calhoun 
regarded  a  simple  numerical  majority  as  no  bet- 
ter than  brute  force,  capable  of  the  greatest 
tyranny,  and  the  conduct  of  the  numerically 
stronger  Northern  states  in  passing  legislation 

/  conducive  to  their  own  well  being  at  the  expense 
of  the  South  as  an  excellent  example  of  this  ty- 

.   ranny.    In  place  of  the  numerical  majority,  Cal- 

'  hoim  substituted  a  theory  of  the  "constitutional'^ 
or  "concurrent"  majority.  But  first  it  was  neces- 
sary for  him  to  show  that  the  foundation  upon 
which  the  theory  of  the  numerical  majority  rested 
was  wrong. 


84  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

"It  is  a  great  and  dangerous  error,"  he  says, 
"to  suppose  that  all  people  are  equally*^  entitled 
to  liberty."  To  Calhoun  there  is  no  such  thing 
as  an  inherent  and  inalienable  right  to  liberty, 
but  hberty  is  a  reward  to  be  earned — a  reward 
reserved  by  an  allwise  Providence  for  the  intelU- 
gent,  the  patriotic,  the  virtuous  and  the  deserving. 
Closely  connected  with  this  error  regarding 
liberty  is  another,  not  less  great  or  dangerous, 
which  makes  perfect  equality  necessary  to  liberty. 
Both  of  these  errors  have  their  origin  in  the  view 
"that  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal — ^than 
which  nothing  can  be  more  unfounded  and  false." 
The  opinion  that  all  men  are  born  free  and  equal 
is  the  result  of  a  belief  in  a  state  of  nature  which 
preceded  the  establishment  of  society.  Such  a 
state  of  nature  Calhoun  rejects  as  inconsistent 
with  the  preservation  and  perpetuation  of  the 
race;  instead  of  being  a  state  of  nature  it  is  the 
condition  most  repugnant  to  man's  feelings  and 
most  incompatible  with  his  wants;  Calhoun  be- 
lieved that  man  was  by  nature  a  social  animal  and 
that  he  was  bom  into  society  and  subject  to 
authority.  ^ 

Having  rejected  the  theoretical  basis  upon 
which  the  supremacy  of  the  numerical  majority 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  85 

had  been  made  to  rest,  Calhoun  proceeds  to  the 
construction  of  his  theory  of  the  concurrent  ma- 
jority. Starting  from  the  premise  that  the  ten- 
dency of  government  is  to  oppression  and  abuse 
of  its  powers,  the  primary  necessity  is  for  some 
means  to  counteract  or  control  this  tendency. 
The  suffrage  alone  will  not  do  it,  for  it  can  do  no 
more  than  transfer  the  actual  control  over  gov- 
ernment from  those  who  make  and  execute  the 
laws  to  the  body  of  the  community.  If  the  in- 
terests of  each  and  every  portion  of  the  com- 
munity were  the  same,  then  any  law  which  op- 
pressed one  part  would  oppress  the  whole  and  the 
right  of  suffrage  would  be  sufficient  to  counteract 
the  tendency  of  government  to  misuse  its  pow- 
ers; but  it  is  evident  that  the  interests  of  a  com- 
munity are  not  the  same  and  that  a  law  which 
is  much  to  the  advantage  of  one  party  may  be 
greatly  to  the  detriment  of  another;  since  the 
primary  purpose  of  government  is  protection, 
some  means  must  be  devised  by  which  the  injured 
part  may  protect  itself;  the  only  method  by  which 
this  can  be  effected  is  "by  taking  the  sense  of 
each  interest  or  portion  of  the  community, 
which  may  be  unequally  and  injuriously  affected 
by  the  action  of  government  .  .  .  and  to  require 


86  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

the  consent  of  each  interest,  either  to  put  or  to 
keep  the  government  in  action."  Only  by  such  an 
arrangement  will  it  be  impossible  for  any  one 
interest  or  class  or  order  or  portion  of  the  com- 
munity, to  obtain  exclusive  control  of  the  gov- 
ernment and  to  oppress  the  others. 

Such  a  view  of  democracy  was  rejected  by  the 
American  people  since  it  was  based  upon  the  rule 
of  the  minority  and  not  of  the  majority.  To 
Calhoun  it  seemed  the  principle  necessary  to 
maintain  liberty,  and  it  is  the  only  attempt  in 
our  history  to  interpret  democracy  in  any  other 
terms  than  those  of  mere  numbers.  It  was  an 
attempt  to  turn  back  the  time  of  popular  control 
of  government  and  it  failed. 

Though  the  colonies  were  closely  related  by 
ties  of  blood  and  language  and  a  common  heri- 
tage of  English  civilization,  yet  their  interests 
were  divergent  and  the  course  of  their  develop- 
ment after  the  formation  of  the  Union  and  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  forced  them  steadily 
farther  apart.  The  effects  of  soil  and  of  climate 
and  the  resulting  economic  differences  between 
the  North  and  the  South  contributed  more  than 
all  other  factors,  perhaps,  to  the  difference  in  at- 
titude toward  society  and  government  which  pre- 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  87 

vailed  in  the  two  sections.  Colonial  jealousies 
were  succeeded  by  state  rivalries  and  the  difficul- 
ties of  travel  and  communication  made  it 
impossible  for  the  two  sections  to  know  and  to 
understand  each  other.  Moreover  tillers  of  the 
soil  view  with  hostile  eye  the  worker  in  the  shop 
and  the  factory;  agriculture  and  manufacture 
are  world  old  rivals.  The  soil  and  the  climate  of 
the  Southern  states  were  pre-eminently  suited  to 
agriculture  while  those  of  the  Northern  states 
as  naturally  turned  the  inhabitants  to  commerce 
and  manufactures. 

Though  the  Declaration  of  Independence  as- 
serted that  all  men  were  created  equal,  slavery 
was  even  then  to  be  f oimd  in  all  the  colonies  and 
its  existence  was  recognized  by  the  Constitution; 
but  slavery  did  not  thrive  in  the  North  and  grad- 
ually disappeared.  That  such  would  be  its  fate 
in  the  South  also,  seems  to  have  been  the  general 
expectation  until  the  invention  of  the  cotton  gin 
made  the  production  of  cotton  on  a  large  scale 
possible  and  profitable  by  the  means  of  slave 
labor.  From  that  moment  the  institution  of 
slavery  was  fastened  upon  the  South  until  it  was 
overthrown  in  the  struggle  for  the  preservation 
of  the  Union  whose  existience  had  been  threat- 
ened by  it. 


88  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

In  the  early  days  of  the  Republic  southern 
statesmen  regarded  slavery  as  an  evil  and  con- 
doned, rather  than  justified,  its  presence.  With 
the  invention  of  the  cotton  gin  and  the  produc- 
tion of  cotton  as  a  staple  crop,  a  change  gradually 
took  place  in  their  attitude  and  slavery  in  time 
was  defended  as  a  "positive  good."  This  de- 
fense of  slavery  marks  a  change  in  the  social  and 
political  conditions  of  the  South,  a  change  which 
gave  rise  to  the  view  that  the  highest  type  of 
civilization  was  that  which  rested  upon  slave 
labor.  The  Greek  conception  was  revived  and 
the  Greek  argument  that  such  a  composition  of 
society  gave  the  freemen  the  opportunity  and 
the  leisure  for  culture  and  public  life  which  other- 
wise would  have  been  lacking,  was  repeated.  In 
both  cases  there  was  a  small  ruling  class,  with 
equal  political  rights,  which  constituted  a  sort  of 
aristocracy.  The  feeling  in  the  South  was 
strongly  aristocratic;  it  was  exclusive  and  supe- 
rior while  proclaiming  itself  democratic.  The 
whole  political  and  social  development  in  the 
South  had  been  hostile  to  Democracy,  meaning 
thereby  the  rule  of  the  numerical  majority.         f  | 

The  divergence  in  economic  development  be- 
tween the  North  and  the  South  and  the  presence ; 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  89 

of  slaves  in  large  numbers  in  the  latter,  could  not 
fail  to  produce  a  different  social  life  in  each  sec- 
tion out  of  which  there  grew  different  concep- 
tions of  government  and  of  democracy.  The  irre- 
pressible conflict  had  begun;  out  of  it  in  the  end 
came  a  nation  wholly  free,  in  which  the  principle 
of  majority  rule  triumphed  as  never  before  in 
the  history  of  the  country.  ^ 

Though  the  slavery  question  was  the  immediate 
cause  of  the  Civil  War,  the  real  issue  at  stake  was 
the  sort  of  government  which  should  prevail. 
Was  there  to  be  a  Democracy  of  freemen  united 
into  a  single  Union  or  were  there  to  be  two  coun- 
tries, one  slave,  the  other  free?  At  the  outbreak 
of  the  war  the  question  of  the  extension,  or  even 
of  the  existence  of  slavery,  was  pushed  into  the 
background  and  the  preservation  of  the  Union 
was  uppermost  in  the  public  mind.  Jackson's 
famous  toast  in  the  days  of  Nullification,  "The 
Union !  It  must  be  preserved,"  might  have  served 
as  the  battle  cry  of  the  Union  arms.  Calhoun's 
toast  on  the  same  occasion,  "Liberty!  Dearer 
than  Union,"  animated  the  spirit  of  the  South. 

The  victory  settled  for  all  practical  purposes 
that  the  Union  was  indissoluble,  that  Secession 
was  impossible,  and  that  by  the  Constitution  a 


90  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

great  state  had  been  created,  embracing  all  the 
states,  and  that  in  it  the  principle  of  majority 
rule  should  prevail  even  at  the  cost  of  civil  war.  ' 
The  existence  of  slavery  in  a  free  coimtry  was 
an  anomaly  which  could  not  endure  forever.  The 
Declaration  of  Independence  had  laid  the  foun- 
dation for  its  overthrow  in  the  assertion  that  all 
men  are  created  equal.  This  principle  is  the  logi- 
cal foundation  both  for  the  abolition  of  slavery 
and  for  the  supremacy  of  mere  numbers.  Few 
have  sought  to  give  the  words  a  literal  interpre- 
tation, for  it  is  in  violation  of  our  reason  to  claim 
equaUty  in  all  respects  for  all  men,  but  their  ap- 
plication has  been  hmited  to  the  field  of  law.  All 
men  are  born  equal  before  the  law.  It  is  a  doc- 
trine aimed  at  class  distinctions  supported  by 
law  and  had  its  modern  origin  in  the  spirit  of 
rebellion  against  the  power  of  kings  and  nobles. 
It  was  eminently  proper  for  the  new  Republic  to 
proclaim  such  a  principle  inasmuch  as  all  royal 
and  hereditary  powers  and  privileges  had  been 
rejected.  But  leaving  out  of  consideration  the 
existence  of  slavery,  the  legal  equality  of  all  men 
was  far  from  assured.  In  the  field  of  political 
activities  there  were  religious,  property  and  edu- 
cational qualifications  w^ich  produced  great  in« 
equalities  among  the  citizens. 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  91 

As  has  already  been  pointed  out,  these  legal 
inequaUties  in  the  form  of  restrictions  upon  a 
man's  ability  to  vote  and  hold  office  were  rapidly 
removed  in  the  years  following  the  election  of 
Jefferson.  In  the  Western  states  they  never 
gained  a  foothold.  The  removal  of  these  in- 
equalities was  the  first  work  of  the  Democracy  in 
seeking  to  realize  its  ideals,  and  when  the  work 
was  done  the  next  step  witnessed  the  actual  con- 
trol of  the  government  by  the  newly  enfranchised 
masses  in  the  Jacksonian  Epoch.  But  already 
the  development  of  the  national  life  was  bring- 
ing other  problems.  Greatest  of  them  all  was 
that  of  slavery.  The  solving  of  this  problem 
through  Emancipation  and  the  Thirteenth 
Amendment  resulted  in  removing  the  glaring 
conflict  between  our  theory  and  our  practice. 
The  equality  of  man  had  been  attained  to  the 
extent  that  all  men  were  now  free  but  the  negroes 
were  lacking  in  all  political  rights,  and  the  radi- 
cal spirit  of  the  North,  in  disregard  of  experience, 
resolved  upon  the  enfranchisement  of  the  newly 
hberated  slaves.  The  Thirteenth  Amendment 
might  bring  freedom  and  the  Fourteenth  civil 
rights,  but  they  were  deemed  insufficient  to  guar- 
antee the  negro  against  oppression.  So,  avowedly 


92  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

to  furnish  him  with  the  necessary  protection,  the 
Fifteenth  Amendment  was  adopted  by  which  it 
was  provided  that  the  right  to  vote  should  not  be 
denied  or  abridged  by  reason  of  race,  color,  or 
previous  condition  of  servitude. 

The  enfranchisement  of  the  negro  as  a  means 
for  his  own  protection  would  never  have  been 
contemplated  but  for  the  theory  of  democracy 
which  had  been  accepted  in  the  North  and  West, 
that  all  men  were  equal.  The  theory  had  found 
practical  application  in  the  spoils  system  and 
rotation  in  office,  and  now  it  was  to  be  extended 
to  the  whole  nation  in  universal  manhood  suf- 
frage. The  previous  development  contributed 
much  to  the  failure  of  the  North  to  realize  that 
to  put  the  ballot  into  the  hands  of  the  liberated 
slave  was  to  introduce  an  era  of  political  corrup- 
tion unparalleled  in  history.  A  few  vindictive 
spirits  may  have  sought  to  humble  and  to  punish 
the  South  through  negro  domination;  but  the 
mass  of  men  who  supported  the  policy  were  not 
moved  by  such  motives. 

We  can  scarcely  realize  that  men  should  have 
seriously  advanced  such  an  idea  or  have  so  far 
lost  sight  of  the  realities  as  to  have  placed  in  the 
hands  of  the  ignorant  blacks  the  highest  privi- 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  93 

lege  of  citizenship.  From  the  outset  the  belief 
has  been  strong  among  us  that  education  is  essen- 
tial to  the  welfare  of  the  Republic  and  a  great 
public  school  system  has  been  developed  to  train 
future  citizens.  An  intelligent  public  opinion  is 
fundamental  in  a  free  country  and  this  lapse  from 
it  can  be  accounted  for  only  upon  the  ground  that 
the  Jacksonian  theory  of  equality  had  become 
sadly  perverted. 

The  idea  that  the  evils  of  government  would  be 
abolished  by  the  introduction  of  what  was  then 
called  universal  suffrage  was  widely  accepted. 
Government  as  a  concern  of  the  few  was  being 
replaced  by  the  conception  of  government  as  the 
business  of  the  many.  The  trouble,  it  was  said, 
was  in  a  too  restricted  electorate  and  gradually 
all  limits  upon  manhood  suffrage  were  removed. 
This  notion  was  the  result  of  a  natural  reaction 
against  the  old  conditions  of  government  under 
the  monarchy  when  the  determining  voice  in  mat- 
ters of  government  rested  with  the  sovereign 
alone  or  in  conjunction  with  a  few  nobles  and  a 
small  favored  class. 

A  similar  movement  was  in  progress  in  Great 
Britain  and  by  successive  stages  the  suffrage  was 
extended  to  ever  widening  circles  until  manhood 


94  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

suffrage  was  practically  attained.  The  same 
tendency  was  to  be  seen  in  other  countries  also, 
in  which  the  struggle  for  popular  control  of  the 
government  was  being  waged.  Upon  the  the- 
ory that  all  men  are  equal  before  the  law,  there 
was  no  logical  stopping  place  short  of  manhood 
suffrage.  This  was  insistently  demanded  for  and 
by  those  who  were  excluded,  but  the  removal  of 
restrictions  on  the  right  to  vote  and  the  admission 
of  great  numbers  of  ignorant  and  imtrained  men 
not  only  did  not  remove  the  evils  of  politics  but, 
on  the  contrary,  greatly  increased  them.  It  has 
been  pointed  out  already  how  this  process  of  ex- 
tending the  suffrage  affected  political  parties  and 
was  reacted  upon  by  them.  The  parties  sought 
popular  favor  by  advocating  imiversal  suffrage 
and  every  addition  of  an  untrained  class  of  men 
to  the  voting  population  demanded  a  closer  or- 
ganization and  a  stricter  discipline  of  the  party  in 
order  to  win,  and  victory  was  imperative  since 
only  by  it  could  the  rewards  of  office  be  gained. 
By  the  time  the  process  was  complete  and  man- 
hood suffrage  had  been  attained,  the  boss  was  a 
well  recognized  part  of  the  poUtical  machinery. 

The  Civil  War  had  a  great  influence  upon  the 
nature  of  the  Union  and  the  character  of  the 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  95 

government.  Without  altering  the  outward 
form,  it  nevertheless  produced  a  great  change 
in  the  relation  of  the  states  to  the  nation.  It 
settled  definitively  that  the  Union  was  greater 
than  any  state  and  by  the  Fourteenth  Amend- 
ment greatly  increased  the  power  of  the  Federal 
government  at  the  expense  of  the  states.  It  like- 
wise produced  a  condition  which  resulted  in  the 
supremacy  of  a  single  party  for  a  generation. 
Its  war  record  alone  would  have  made  the  Repub- 
lican party  invincible  at  the  polls  but  the  sub- 
servient negro  vote  rendered  it  doubly  so.  The 
result  upon  the  party  system  was  bad.  Men  be- 
longed to  one  party  or  to  the  other  because  it 
had  or  had  not  supported  the  War  and  not 
because  of  the  principles  and  measures  which  it 
advocated.  The  long  continued  supremacy  of 
one  party  led  to  a  sense  of  security  and  ownership 
of  office  far  beyond  anything  which  Jackson  had 
encoimtered. 


CHAPTER  V 

DEVELOPMENT   OF   PARTIES   AND   PARTY 
MACHINERY 

In  the  United  States  the  fundamental  principle 
of  government  has  been  representation.  There 
has  been  no  thought  of  a  direct  democracy  in 
which  the  people  should  meet  together  but  gov- 
ernment has  been  carried  on  through  representa- 
tives chosen  from  districts.  In  the  New  li^gland 
town  meeting,  to  be  sure,  the  people  had  a  direct 
voice  in  government  and  a  vote  of  the  people  came 
to  be  necessary  for  the  adoption  of  constitutions 
and  constitutional  amendments.  To  this  referen- 
dum in  making  and  amending  constitutions  has 
been  added  in  a  few  of  the  states  a  referendum 
and  an  initiative  both  of  constitutional  amend- 
ments and  of  ordinary  laws.  These  expressions 
of  the  popular  opinion  in  matters  of  government 
are,  however,  exceptional  and  it  still  remains  true 
that  almost  the  sole  act  by  which  the  individual 
participates  in  the  function  of  government  is  that 

96 


I 


MAJORITY  RULE  97 

of  the  ballot;  he  votes  for  a  particular  individual 
for  a  legislative,  executive,  or  judicial  office  and 
the  representative  chosen  gives  expression  to  the 
will  of  the  state  through  acts  of  government. 

Some  method  of  determining  the  persons  to  be 
voted  for  has  always  been  necessary.  In  colonial 
days  the  English  practice  by  which  candidates 
presented  themselves  to  the  voters  without  any 
nomination  was  followed;  this  plan  was  practical 
because  the  districts  were  small  and  the  right  of 
suffrage  very  limited ;  with  the  increase  of  popu- 
lation, the  extension  of  the  suffrage  and  conse- 
quent increase  in  the  number  of  voters,  and  the 
enlargement  of  the  number  of  elective  offices,  some 
method  of  nominating  candidates  for  office  be- 
came necessary.  It  was  realized  that  the  theoreti- 
cal question  of  popular  rule  resolved  itself  into 
the  practical  one  of  securing  the  concentration 
of  the  votes  of  all  like  thinking  men  upon  the 
same  individual.  To  accomplish  this  an  organiza- 
tion of  the  voters  into  parties  was  the  first  stej 
and  the  second  was  to  secure  within  the  part] 
some  machinery  for  determining  the  individual] 
upon  whom  the  members  should  concentrate  thei] 
votes. 

The  earliest  nominating  machinery  was  the 


98  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

Qaucus,  an  institution  developed  in  Massachu- 
setts out  of  the  meeting  of  a  few  individuals  who 
were  interested  in  securing  the  election  of  certain 
men  to  the  local  offices ;  the  meetings  were  at  first 
informal  and  without  any  sort  of  rules  or  regula- 
tions but  in  them  was  the  germ  of  the  modern 
highly  developed  nominating  system.  1 

As  early  as  the  year  1790  a  plan  for  nominat- 
ing state  officers  byjhe  members  of  the  legisla- 
ture was  tried  in  Rhode  IsIand'anJits  success  led 
to  its  rapid  adoption  generally  throughout  the 
United  States.  In  the  method  provided  in  th 
Constitution  for  the  election  of  the  President,  it 
was  the  theory  that  the  electors  would  exercise 
free  choice  and  select  that  man  in  all  the  count 
whom  they  regarded  as  best  fitted  to  fill  the  higH 
office.  By  a  system  of  election  by  electors  it  was 
thought  that  a  refining  and  purifying  procesi 
had  been  introduced  which  would  result  in  a  s 
lection  far  superior  to  one  made  by  the  common 
mass  of  the  people.  Choice  by  the  electors  w 
easy  so  long  as  Washington  was  available  but 
soon  as  he  passed  from  the  political  stage  it  be 
came  apparent  that  there  was  no  one  person  who 
commanded  the  support  of  all  parties.  Indis4 
criminate  voting  in  the  electoral  college  might 


4 

as 

i 

)n 

] 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  99 

lead  to  no  choice  and  a  consequent  throwing  of 
the  election  into  the  House  of  Representatives. 
To  prevent  this  an  agreement  beforehand  of  those 
of  Uke  mind  became  necessary  and  in  consequence 
some  method  of  reaching  an  agreement.  In  order 
that  there  might  be  a  candidate  who  should  ap- 
pear as  the  choice  of  the  party,  the  members  of 
Congress  of  the_resp£ctiye  parties  gathered  in 
an  Informal  and  unauthomedlneeting  and  chose 
a  candidate.  Thereby  the  theory  of  a  free  choice 
on  the  part  of  the  electors  was  abandoned  and 
from  that  time  till  now  they  have  regarded  them- 
selves as  bound  to  vote  for  the  party  nominee, 
however  he  may  be  nominated. 

The  legislative  caucus  was  a  self -constituted 
body,  having  no  authority  from  the  people  or  the 
party.     Its  nominations  were  accepted  at  first/ 
because  it  solved  a  difficulty  and  they  were  ac-V 
quiesced  in  for  long  because  there  was  no  other 
method  at  hand  that  was  preferable.    It  was  th« 
most  representative  body  in  existence,  yet  it  was| 
by  the  very  nature  of  its  composition  rendered  \ 
incapable  of  representing  all  parts  of  the  coun- 
try.   By  this  method  of  nominating  candidates 
the  members  of  the  party  in  a  minority  in  a  legis- 
lative district  had  no  voice  in  the  naming  of  the 


I 


I 


100  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

party's  candidate.  To  remedy  this  defect  so 
called  "mix  caucuses"  were  introduced,  composed 
of  the  legislative  representatives  of  a  party  and 
of  men  specially  selected  in  those  districts  in 
which  the  party  had  no  representative  in  the  leg- 
islative body.  The  lack  of  a  true  representative 
character,  combined  with  the  growing  conscious- 
ness of  its  unauthorized  character,  led  eventually 
to  its  abandonment. 

In  the  so-called  era  of  good  feeling  which  suc- 
ceeded upon  the  close  of  the  War  of  1812  there^ 
was  but  a  single  party  and  the  struggle  for  the 
nomination  for  the  presidency  sank  into  a  con- 
test among  the  leaders  and  assumed  the  charac-^l 
ter  of  factional  contests  in  which  the  Congres- 
sional caucus  sank  into  an  unenviable  position 
as  the  center  of  intrigues  and  combinations 
among  the  supporters  of  the  aspirants.  Its  se- 
lections were  made  with  little  regard  to  the  pop- 
ular wish  and  without  the  slightest  control  b] 
the  people,  and  this  too,  at  a  time  when  the  de-j 
mand  for  a  wider  degree  of  control  of  government] 
by  the  people  was  constantly  in  evidence,  for  th( 
spirit  of  democracy  had  found  expression  in 
constant  widening  of  the  suffrage  and  an  increase] 
of  elective  offices. 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  101 

The  Congressional  caucus  continued  to  per- 
form its  function  until  1824;  after  Jackson  was 
defeated  for  the  presidency  in  that  year  and  the 
party  of  the  "Jackson  men"  was  formed  to  vin- 
dicate the  "Hero  of  New  Orleans"  and  the  rights 
of  the  people,  the  Congressional  caucus  was 
abandoned  as  an  undemocratic  institution;  its 
support  had  been  diminishing  and  it  disappeared 
altogether  in  the  face  of  the  jealousy  of  the 
people  of  any  agency  which  seemed  to  take  power 
away  from  them  and  which  did  not  draw  its 
authority  from  them.  It  was  obvious  that  the 
authority  of  the  caucus  was  self-assumed  and  this 
fact  was  sufficient  to  condemn  it  in  the  eyes  of  the 
masses.  With  the  abandonment  of  the  Congres- 
sional caucus,  the  legislative  caucus  in  the  states 
also  disappeared  and  some  new  method  of  nom- 
inating candidates  became  imperative.  At  first 
a  variety  of  unauthorized,,  and  self-constituted 
nomin^ting^lbodiessprang  up  but  they  all  lacked 
the  virtues  and  suffered  from  the  vices  of  the  old 
legislative  caucus;  in  addition  there  was  no  cer- 
tainty of  fixing  the  choice  of  a  party  upon  a  single 
individual.  They  did  well  enough  for  the  nom- 
ination of  a  popular  figure  such  as  Jackson,  but 
some  more  systematic  means  for  gathering  the 


iror^i'-HA 


102  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

opinion  of  the  party  voters  was  necessary.     It 
was  discovered  in  the  nominating  convention. 

Conventions  had  been  in  use  from  the  begin- 
ning of  our  national  hf e  for  the  purpose  of  fram- 
ing, adopting,  and  amending  constitutions.    The 
^originaljUieo^^^f^on^  was  that  of  a  body 

specially  chosen  in  which  was  to  be  found  the 
ultimate  source  of  popular  authority.    In  the  ac- 
tion of  the  Constitutional  Convention  at  Philadel- 
phia in  the  method  it  provided  for  the  adoption 
of  the  Constitution  there  was  a  clear  illustration 
of  this  idea.     The  Convention  had  been  sum- 
moned imder  a  resolution  of  the  Congress  "for 
the  sole  and  express  purpose  of  amending  the 
Articles  of  Confederation,"  yet  its  first  important 
step  was  a  determination  not  to  attempt  to  amend 
the  Articles  but  to  frame  a  new  kind  of  govern- 
ment.   Such  action  was  revolutionary  and  could 
be  justified  only  by  the  approval  of  thie  people. 
To  secure  this  approval,  and  thereby  remove  the 
illegality  of  their   proceeding,   the   Conventioi 
adopted    a    resolution    recommending   that    th( 
Constitution  should  be  submitted  to  conventions 
specially  chosen  in  each  state  for  the  purpose  oi 
accepting  or  rejecting  it;     An  approval  by 
majority  vote  of  all  the  people  within  the  Unioi 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  103 

was  unthought  of  and  even  approval  by  a  major- 
ity vote  within  each  state  found  no  advocates,  so 
far  were  the  "Fathers"  removed  from  the  notion 
of  a  direct  democracy. 

It  was  to  this  conception  of  a  convention  that 
the  people  turned  in  seeking  for  a  popular  means 
of  nominating  candidates.  A  nominating  con- 
vention composed  of  delegates  chosen  for  the 
sole  purpose  of  making  the  nomination  would 
represent  the  popular  will  directly,  and  so  it  was 
heralded  as  an  institution  for  restoring  the  con- 
trol of  party  affairs  and  of  the  government  to  the 
hands  of  the  people.  Nothing  seemed  simpler 
than  that  by  electing  the  delegates  the  people 
would  control  the  nominations,  for  it  was  still  the 
era  when  election  was  regarded  as  the_principle 
by  which  the  popularwill  could  be  made  effective. 
So  from  top  to  bottom  of  the  party  structure 
conventions  were  introduced.  At  the  top,  as  the 
culmination  of  all,  was  the  national  convention 
for  the  nomination  of  candidates  for  President 
and  Vice-President ;  at  the  bottom,  the  caucus  or 
primary  remained  as  the  smallest  local  unit.  In 
^between,  county  and  district  and  state  conven- 
tions were  developed  for  the  nomination  of  can- 
didates for  local  and  state  offices  and  for 
Congress. 


104 


AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 


Parallelingthe  coi):v^entions  there  grew  up  a 
system  of  committees,  local,  state  and  national, 
constituting    the    executive    machinery    of   the 
party,  which  in  time  acquired  great  influence. 
This  committee  system  was  due  to  the  necessil 
of  maintaining  the  highly  complex  organizatioi 
of  the  party,  which  had  resulted  from  the  pra< 
tical  application  of  the  democratic  spirit  in  th< 
extension  of  the  suffrage,  the  great  increase 
the  number  of  elective  offices  and  the  frequence 
of  elections,  and  in  the  principles  of  rotation 
office  and  to  the  victor  belongs  the  spoils. 

With  the  development  of  a  complicated  pa] 
machinery,  there  grew  up  necessarily  many  rule 
for  the  guidance  and  direction  of  the  parties 
the  selection  of  delegates  to  the  conventions, 
the  conduct  of  the  conventions  themselves,  in  th( 
choice  of  committeemen  and  in  the  determine 
tion  of  their  f unctions^y  Most  important  of  thei 
all,  however,  were  the  rule^-determining  whojwei 
eligible  to  :vQte  for  the  delegates  or  to  participal 
in  the  caucus  or  primary  for  the  nomination  oi 
candidates  for  the  local  offices  and  for  the  electioi 
of  delegates  to  the  first  convention  in  the  series 
The  importance  of  controlling  the  smallest  parti 
units  was  evident,  since  they  were  the  starting 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  105 

point  for  all  the  conventions  and  committees 
higher  up.  By  dominating  them,  the  control  of 
the  higher  organizations  was  practically  assured, 
and  there  was  no  other  way  of  effecting  this  than 
by  controlling  those  who  participated  in  them. 
In  the  first  place,  a  vigorous  effort  was  made  to 
exclude  all  those  who  belonged  to  a  different 
party.  The  next  object  was  to  exclude  all  those 
whose  party  allegiance  was  not  strong  and  who 
would,  therefore,  readily  vote  for  the  candidate 
of  another  party  if  they  regarded  that  candidate 
as  better  fitted.  Such^  members  were  not  easily 
disciplined  and  the  success  of  party  was  seen  to 
he  in  the  strength  of  its  organization.  What  has 
just  been  said  refers  to  the  average  or  normal 
local  unit  in  the  towns  and  villages  and  in  the 
country;  in  the  cities,  the  control  of  the  caucus 
was  even  more  absolute  in  the  hands  of  the 
bosses.  Men  of  independent  spirit,  even  if  they 
passed  the  tests  of  party  regularity  and  secured 
admission,  were  at  a  great  disadvantage  against 
the  organization  and  the  voters  it  controlled. 

Up  to  the  time  of  the  Civil  War  the  party 
system  in  general  had  served  the  useful  purpose 
of  forming  a  cohesive  forceoutside__of_^goTOm- 
ment  and  yet  working  toward  harmonious  action. 


106  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

m  the__vaLckma_^ranches.  It  had  succeeded 
modifyjpff,  in  large  measure,  the  theory  of  the 
separation  of  the  powers  of  government  which 
had  been  regarded  as  so  fundamental_b^  the 
makers  of  our  constitutions.  Up  to  that  time, 
too,  the  nommating  conventions  for  the  most  part 
reflected  the  popular  will  and  party  organiza 
tion  had  not  become  tyrannical. 

The  introduction  of  the  nominating  conven 
tion  was,  however,  an  anomaly  and  in  contradic 
tion  to  the  spirit  of  direct  rule  by  the  majority 
which  was  making  such  rapid  headway.     The 
convention  was  never  a  true  institution  of  democ- 
racy and  it  is  a  little  curious  that  it  should  eve 
have  been  regarded  as  the  surest  and  best  mean 
for  gathering  the  will  of  the  people,  especiall; 
since  by  the  time  nominating  conventions  wen 
introduced,     constitutions     and     constitution 
amendments  were  being  submitted  to  a  dire 
vote  of  the  people.    It  was  one  of  those  interest 
ing  cases  in  history  when  the  inventive  geniui 
of  mankind  fails  and  an  old  institution  is  seized 
upon  and  used  for  a  new  purpose  because  of  ^^n^i 
an  old  idea  which  underlay  it.  ^! 

The  convention,  once  introduced,  held  its  own 
in  the  face  of  democratic  development  because  o 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  107 

its^effiiugncy^and  ease  of  management,  and  event- 
ually  JaficaiiafijDQhejgQnix^  it  assured  to 

thejgartj_bosses.  In  time,  the  chief  business  of 
a  party  came  to  be  the  securing  of  the  nomina- 
tion of  some  particular  individual  or  individuals 
and  the  selection  of  the  nominees  was  made  by  a 
single  individual  or  by  a  small  group  of  individ- 
uals, known  as  the  party  bosses.  The  rank  and 
file  of  the  party  had  no  real  part  or  share  in  the 
choice  and  as  similar  conditions  prevailed  in 
both  the  large  parties,  the  individual  voter  could 
do  no  more  than  choose  between  the  candidates 
thus  presented.  The  popular  will,  in  so  far  as 
there  was  one,  could  express  itself  only  in  making 
choice  between  two  candidates.  The  majority 
might  decide  the  election  but  the  majority  had 
nothing  to  do  with  choosing  the  candidates:  The 
convention,  which  had  been  introduced  as  a  demo- 
cratic institution  for  the  express  purpose  of  re- 
storing power  to  the  people,  had  now  become  the 
least  democratic  of  institutions,  and  after  a  suc- 
cessful career  of  nearly  three-quarters  of  a  cen- 
tury, it  seems  threatened  by  the  direct  primary, 
proclaimed  in  its  turn,  a  true  institution  of  de- 
mocracy for  securing  the  control  of  nominations 
in  the  parties  by  a  majority  vote.  "^ 


108  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

The  direct  primary  is  only  the  newest  of  many 
efforts  at  reform  in  the  interest  of  a  real  choice  by 
the  majority.  Preceding  it  were  nimaerous  at- 
tempts to  abohsh  the  evils  which  had  grown  up 
in  political  hf e  and  which  in  some  strange  fashion 
seemed  to  take  the  power  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
people  and  place  it  in  the  hands  of  the  few. 
While  these  reforms  were  valuable,  they  did  not 
get  to  the  root  of  the  trouble  and  consequently  did 
not  produce  the  desired  change  in  pohtical  life 
The  real  control  of  the  government  remained] 
in  the  hands  of  a  few  who  did  not  hesitate  in  many 
instances  to  use  corrupt  methods  for  maintaining 
their  control. 

At  first  the  control  of  government  was  sought 
largely  for  the  sake  of  the  salaries  attached  to  the 
offices  but  in  the  end  the  realization  of  the  great 
financial  profit  which  could  be  gained  throug 
the  control  of  government  produced  "the  combin 
ation  of  big  business  which  desired  privilege  an 
of  bad  business  which  desired  protection,"  an 
out  of  the  combination  there  resulted  the  strongly 
intrenched  political  machine  in  many  cities  and 
in  some  states. 

It  very  soon  became  evident  that  those  wh 
controlled  the  government  could  realize  certai: 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  109 

indirect  financial  profits;  there  were  offices  to  be 
filled  by  the  appointment  of  relatives,  or  there 
were  contracts  to  be  let  to  other  relatives  or  to 
companies  in  which  the  officials  had  financial  in- 
terests; these,  with  many  others  of  a  like  sort, 
constituted  the  sources  of  so-called  "honest 
graft,"  or  money  which  could  be  legitimately 
made  through  the  control  of  the  various  depart- 
ments of  governmental  activity.  It  was  very 
easy  to  pass  over  to  the  position  that  those  in 
control  of  government  and  therefore  in  control 
of  the  disposition  of  these  favors  should  be  paid 
by  the  one  to  whom  they  were  dispensed;  when 
this  happened,  "dishonest  graft"  had  made  its 
appearance;  in  time  the  protection  of  vice  and 
crime  on  the  one  hand  and  the  granting  of  special 
privileges  on  the  other  were  added  as  sources  of 
financial  profit  to  those  in  control  of  government, 
whether  office  holders  or  party  bosses. 

The  final  stage  in  the  development  of  the  con- 
trol of  government  for  private  gain  was  in  the 
alliance  of  the  political  boss,  whose  reward  had 
lain  in  the  sense  of  power  which  he  enjoyed  or  in 
the  graft  which  he  could  secure,  with  the  leaders 
of  business  whose  interests  it  was  thought  neces- 
sary to  protect  from  hostile  or  to  advance  by 


110  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

favorable  legislation.  The  political  boss  con- 
trolled the  choice  of  candidates  and  big  business 
made  the  boss  subservient  through  its  campaign 
contributions  and  slush  funds.  Business  was 
non-partisan  and  contributed  to  both  parties  as 
it  served  its  interest. 

To  meet  the  growing  control  of  government 
for  private  gain  and  to  curb  the  power  of  the 
boss,  efforts  have  been  made  to  purify  elections 
through  greater  state  supervision  upon  the  theory 
that  thereby  the  popular  will  might  find  a  correct 
expression.  The  general  course  of  affairs  has 
been  toward  the  assumption  by  the  state  of  con- 
trol of  all  matters  pertaining  to  elections. 
Originally  all  that  the  state  undertook  was  the 
regulation  of  the  time  and  place  of  holding  the 
elections  and  the  counting  of  the  ballots.  The 
preparation  of  the  ballots  and  their  distribution 
were  formerly  left  to  the  candidates,  but  now  the 
ballots  are  provided  by  the  state.  Ballots  arei 
official  and  uniform  and  a  number  of  laws  have! 
been  passed  seeking  to  make  the  use  of  them  an 
intellectual  and  not  a  purely  mechanical  exercise. 
Instead  of  receiving  from  a  party  worker  a  ballot 
already  properly  marked  which  he  had  only  to 
deposit  in  a  box,  the  voter  must  now  enter  the 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  111 

booth  alone  and  mark  his  own  ballot.  But  de- 
spite all  attempts  in  this  direction,  party  workers 
are  still  able  to  direct  the  casting  of  many  votes 
through  the  preparation  of  sample  ballots,  in  the 
marking  of  which  the  voters  are  trained. 

Another  attempt  in  the  direction  of  reform  was 
in  the  registration  laws  by  which  it  was  hoped 
much  of  the  illegal  voting  by  repeaters,  particu- 
larly in  cities,  would  be  done  away  with.  Regis- 
tration has  become  practically  universal  and  more 
recently  has  been  made  the  basis  of  the  party  pri- 
maries. But  election  and  registration  laws  of 
every  description  and  variety  were  of  small  effect 
in  making  the  will  of  the  people  supreme.  Pop- 
ular sovereignty  was  all  right  in  theory  but  when 
the  attempt  was  made  to  put  it  into  practical 
operation  there  were  unexpected  difficulties. 
Laws  directed  to  that  end  did  not  have  the 
desired  result.  Always  in  the  last  analysis  the 
determining  voice  was  seen  to  lie  with  one 
person  or  with  a  few  individuals.  But  not  de- 
spairing, the  attack  of  the  reforming  forces  was 
directed  toward  a  new  quarter.  Men  now  de- 
clared that  the  trouble  lay  in  the  parties! 
Granted  that  parties  are  a  necessity,  they  must 
nevertheless   be   organized   upon   a   democratic 


112  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

basis;  hitherto  they  have  been  aristocratic  or 
oligarchical,  and  so  the  reform  of  the  party  or- 
ganization was  made  the  goal  in  Democracy's 
name. 

There  had  grown  up  in  a  nmnber  of  the 
Southern  states  in  which  one  party  was  in  such  a 
large  majority  that  nomination  was  equivalent 
to  election,  a  system  of  primary  elections  at  which 
the  rival  candidates  for  the  nomination  appealed 
to  the  voters  of  the  party.  The  candidates  as  a 
rule  pledged  themselves  to  abide  by  the  result  of 
the  primary  and  to  support  the  successful  can- 
didate in  the  regular  election.  The  success  of  this 
system  in  choosing  local  officers  led  to  its  adop- 
tion for  the  choice  of  state  officers  and  of  those 
Federal  officers  elected  within  a  state.  This  sys- 
tem of  primary  elections  was  taken  up  by  the 
advocates  of  party  reform  and  its  adoption  urged 
for  all  parties  in  all  the  states. 

The  growth  of  parties  and  party  organization 
was  slow;  for  a  long  time  they  were  almost  with- 
out rules  for  their  own  guidance,  and  even  when 
they  began  to  adopt  measures  for  themselves, 
there  was  no  thought  of  bringing  them  under  the 
control  of  the  state.  They  were  extra-legal  and 
it  was  not  until  the  direct  primary  as  a  method 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  113 

of  nomination  began  to  claim  adherents  that 
proposals  were  made  to  bring  the  parties  imder 
the  control  of  law.  It  is  true  that  whenever  the 
state  midertook  to  do  what  the  candidates  had 
previously  done,  it  was  in  reality  extending  its 
control  over  the  parties,  as  in  the  matter  of  regis- 
tration and  furnishing  ballots  at  pubUc  expense, 
but  it  was  only  with  the  introduction  of  the  direct 
primary  elections  that  party  management  fell 
under  legal  control;  as  yet  this  control  is  limited 
to  the  individual  states  though  a  proposal  for 
"presidential  primaries"  has  been  advanced. 
Under  the  old  system  of  committees  and  con- 
ventions, the  parties  themselves  determined  who 
should  be  eligible,  how  the  members  should  be 
chosen  and  what  duties  and  functions  they  should 
perform.  Under  a  system  of  direct  primaries 
the  law  provides  who  shall  compose  the  electorate 
of  each  party  through  the  registration,  and  how 
and  where  and  when  the  party  election  for  the 
choice  of  candidates  shall  be  held.  Generally 
the  same  laws  regulate  the  primary  election  as 
the  final  election;  the  one  is  in  every  sense  a 
state  affair  as  much  as  is  the  other. 

The  evident  purpose  of  a  direct  primary  is  to 
make  the  choice  of  candidates  dependent  upon 


114  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

the  will  of  the  numerical  majority.  The  con- 
vention was  introduced  because  the  caucus  had 
deprived  the  people  of  their  freedom  of  choice 
and  in  course  of  time  the  convention  became  a 
cunningly  devised  instrument  for  securing  a 
choice  of  candidates  whose  nomination  was  dic- 
tated by  the  bosses  of  "the  machine." 

The  most  encouraging  fact  disclosed  by  a 
study  of  American  democracy  is  the  presence  of 
a  spirit  which  in  spite  of  repeated  defeats  renews 
the  battle  for  majority  rule,  for  the  practical 
control  of  the  government  by  the  people.  The 
most  discouraging  fact  revealed  by  that  same 
study  is  the  successive  failure  of  each  new  insti- 
tution or  arrangement  to  accomplish  the  result. 
At  first  they  seem  filled  with  a  golden  promise 
but  little  by  little  they  pass  under  the  control  of 
a  few  individuals.  The  minority  rules  in  reality 
and  after  a  time  the  majority  comes  to  realize 
that  it  has  been  dispossessed  and  makes  another 
attempt  to  assert  its  supremacy  and  gain  the 
mastery. 

It  sometimes  seems  as  though  Democracy  in 
the  United  States  had  made  no  real  progress  in 
its  efforts  to  control  government  but  had  only 
moved  in  a  vicious  circle.    Starting  with  a  rebel- 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  115 

lion  against  the  rule  of  a  king,  it  progressed  to  a 
republican  form  of  government  and  thus  far  there 
was  real  gain;  but  thereafter  it  has  been  a  suc- 
cession of  reform  movements,  each  having  an 
individual  phase  but  each  aiming  at  the  overthrow 
of  a  small  group  which  had  succeded  in  getting 
control  of  government.  Demand  for  popular! 
rule  is  followed  by  some  new  governmental  ar- 
rangement intended  to  afford  it;  the  new  insti- 
tution in  time  is  perverted  and  is  followed  by  a 
new  demand  for  popular  rule  and  a  new  govern- 
mental institution  which  in  turn  is  overtaken  by 
the  same  fate ;  and  so  it  goes  on  in  a  never  ending 
round.  The  pessimism  of  this  view  would  be  un- 
qualified were  it  not  for  the  successive  efforts  at 
accomplishing  the  result  desired.  It  may  be  that 
our  viewpoint  needs  correction  and  instead  of 
looking  for  some  means  for  the  final  solution  of 
the  difficulty,  we  should  see  in  the  constant  strug- 
gle the  real  nature  of  Democracy. 

Such  a  view  of  American  Democracy  as  we 
have  just  expressed  must  be  modified  by  the  con 
sideration  that  the  changes  thus  far  made  have  not 
been  in  the  structure  and  form  of  government 
so  much  as  in  the  means  of  giving  expression  to 
the  popular  will  through  existing  agencies.    The 


116  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

general  plan  and  system  of  the  American  govern- 
ment is  fundamentally  the  same  to-day  as  when 
it  was  first  established.  The  dual  arrangement 
of  states  and  nation  has  been  maintained  at  all 
costs,  and  within  each  there  is  still  the  threefold 
separation  of  the  departments  of  government, 
the  dual  legislative  chambers,  the  single  execu- 
tive and  a  more  or  less  independent  judiciary. 
The  changes  that  have  been  made  are  in  city  gov- 
ernment and  in  the  initiative,  the  referendum, 
and  the  direct  election  of  senators;  they  are  cal- 
culated to  produce  radical  changes  in  methods  of 
legislation  and  character  of  legislators,  though 
leaving  intact  the  old  framework. 
I  The  changes  have  been  outside  the  framework 
of  government.  Almost  immediately  after  the 
adoption  of  the  Constitution  and  the  successful 
launching  of  the  government,  there  began  to 
grow  up  a  spirit  of  veneration  for  the  Consti- 
tution and  the  republican  form  of  government 
that  had  been  established.  Much  of  the  pros- 
perity of  the  country  was  attributed  to  the  repub- 
lican institutions;  there  was  a  great  pride  in  the 
fact  of  having  established  the  first  republic  with 
an  extensive  territory  and  the  first  Federal  gov- 
ernment the  world  had  ever  known.     The  insti- 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  117 

tutions  which  our  forefathers  had  created  came 
to  be  regarded  as  ahnost  sacred  and  the  Constitu- 
tion as  a  well  nigh  perfect  thing.  If  anything 
were  amiss,  it  was  not  because  of  the  form  of  gov- 
ernment under  which  we  lived. 

Jefferson  gathered  together  a  party  on  a  plat- 
form of  local  self-government,  frequent  elections 
and  the  equality  of  men.  A  rapid  extension  of 
the  suffrage,  a  steady  increase  in  the  number  and 
frequency  of  elections  and  the  organization  of 
party  were  the  means  by  which  he  sought  to 
realize  the  popular  will.  In  Jackson's  day  the 
principle  of  equaUty  was  pushed  still  further  and 
rotation  in  office  and  the  spoils  system  were  in- 
troduced into  the  national  life.  At  the  same 
time  there  was  a  bitter  antagonism  between  the 
new  radical  spirit  of  the  West  and  the  conserva- 
tive propertied  classes  of  the  settled  East.  The 
Civil  War  assured  the  supremacy  of  the  nation 
over  the  states,  the  majority  over  the  minority, 
and  the  abolition  of  slavery  resulted  in  universal 
manhood  suffrage.  Following  the  Civil  War 
came  a  period  of  absorption  in  the  development 
of  the  material  resources  of  the  country  in  the 
course  of  which  men  neglected  government  and 
were  content  so  long  as  those  in  control  of  both 


118  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

parties  and  of  government  were  not  too  out- 
rageous in  their  villany  and  they  themselves 
were  not  disturbed  in  their  money  getting.  In 
time  conscience  awakened.  The  reforms  advo- 
cated, however,  were  not  directed  toward  a  change 
in  the  form  of  government — that  was  still  sacred 
— but  in  the  conduct  of  elections,  the  control  of 
the  party  machinery  and  such  matters,  which 
were  regarded  as  inimical  to  democracy  and  to 
the  supremacy  of  the  popular  will.  It  did  not 
occur  to  any  but  a  few  students  of  the  science  of 
government  to  look  for  the  difficulty  in  the  form 
of  our  government.  It  was  only  by  slow  degrees 
that  the  contradiction  became  apparent  to  a 
wider  circle  which  realized  that  our  government 
had  been  expressly  constituted  to  prevent  the 
direct  and  immediate  expression  of  the  will  of 
the  majority. 


CHAPTER  VI 

SOME  NEWER  FORMS  OF  POPULAR  GOVERNMENT 

The  realization  that  our  form  of  government 
had  been  constructed  to  delay,  if  not  to  thwart, 
the  popular  will  has  come  as  the  result  of  many 
unsuccessful  attempts  to  make  the  will  of  the 
people  count  directly  in  the  control  of  govern- 
ment. The  principle  of  election  had  failed;  uni- 
versal manhood  suffrage  had  not  accomplished 
it;  ballot  reforms  had  not  done  it;  election  laws 
had  proved  futile.  Representatives  were  elected 
to  the  legislature  but  when  elected  they  were  not 
responsive  to  the  popular  will — ^they  did  not 
carry  out  the  wishes  of  the  people  but  the  wishes 
of  a  small  group  of  individuals  who  were  outside 
of  the  government,  often  even  outside  of  party, 
who  yet  controlled  both. 

One  of  the  earliest  indications  of  popular  dis- 
satisfaction with  the  government  was  the  distrust 
of  the  legislatures.  Mr.  Bryce  remarked  upon 
this  fact  some  thirty  years  ago  when  he  was  seek- 

119 


120  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

ing  an  explanation  of  the  great  change  in  the  size 
and  content  of  the  state  constitutions.  The  earher 
constitutions  were  remarkably  brief  documents, 
containing  only  the  framework  of  government. 
Each  department  of  the  government  was  pro- 
vided for  and  the  method  of  its  choice,  the  terms 
of  office  of  the  persons  to  be  chosen,  their  quali- 
fications and  powers  were  set  down.  This,  with 
a  statement  of  the  general  limitations  imposed 
upon  government  and  a  provision  for  amend- 
ment completed  the  usual  contents. 

When  the  distrust  of  legislatures  grew  acute, 
the  old  reverence  for  constitutions  and  the  old 
faith  in  a  republican  form  of  government  were 
still  vigorous  sojhe  natural  remedy  seemed  to  lie 
in  the  simple  procedure  of  enlarging  the  coimitu- 
tionso'aS-tD  include^iiritHie  subjects  which  it  was 
desired  should  be  removed  from  the  sphere  of 
ordinary  legislation.  California  led  the  way  with 
the  constitution  of  1879  which  greatly  surpassed 
in  length  any  previous  constitution.  This  ex- 
ample was  quickly  followed  by  other  states  and 
a  process  of  enlargement  by  revision  and  amend- 
ment set  in,  which  has  resulted  in  inserting  in  our 
constitutions  a  great  mass  of  enactments  which 
should    properly    be    dealt    with    by    statutes. 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  121 

'he  phenomenon  can  be  accounted  for  in  no 
>ther  way  than  as  due  to  a  distrust  on  the  part  of 
le  people  of  their  representatives.    The  Democ- 
racy was  seeking  to  assiu-e  its  supremacy  and 
lolding  to  the  old  theories  of  the  excellence  of  our 
institutions,  it  sought  this  method  of  overcoming 
very  real  failure  which  it  had  experienced.    The 
view  which  was  at  the  bottom  of  the  original  con- 
?titution  niaking  was  to  gain  security  for  the 
liberty  of  the  individual  by  weakening  the  power 
of  government.    On  the  ai^umption  lEat  govern- 
ment was  an  evil,  it  was  sought  to  make  it  as  little 
harmful  as  possible  by  giving  it  the  least  possible 
to  do.     So  during  this  period  the  feeling  with 
respect  to  the  legislatures  seems  to  have  been  to 
render  them  harmless  by  limiting  the  subjects 
upon  which  they  could  legislate.    In  order  to  limit 
further  the  power  of  the  legislatures  to  do  harm, 
many  constitutions  contained  provisions  expressly 
limiting  the  frequency  and  the  length  of  legisla- 
tive sessions. 

These  attempts  to  secure  by  indirection,  as  it 
were,  the  supremacy  of  the  popular  will  were 
highly  illogical  and  were  the  product  of  two  fac- 
tors: the  old  theory  that  liberty  lay"uriiiaction 
and  the  new  condition  of  boss  rule  of  the  legisla- 


122  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 


tures.  They  were  the  result  of  a  failure  to 
perceive  where  the  real  difficulty  lay.  This  limi- 
jtation  of  government  through  restrictions  placed 
upon  the  legislatures  was  reactionary  in  character 
and  could  not  in  the  long  run  endure.  No  insti- 
tution which  is  out  of  harmony  with  the  spirit 
of  the  times  and  of  the  people  can  remain  un- 
changed imder  a  form  of  government  which  is 
popular  in  character.  Beyond  doubt  the  spirit  of 
the  American  people  has  been  steadily  tending 
away  from  the  theory  of  a  government,  limited 
rthat  it  may  not  do  harm,  toward  that  of  a  gov- 
/emment  endowed  with  all  powers  necessary  for 
[the  advancement  of  the  social  well-being  of  the 
I  state  or  nation;  away  from  the  conception  of 
goverment  as  something  evil  in  its  nature  and 
prone  to  oppression  and  toward  the  conception  of 
government  as  an  agent  of  the  popular  will  for 
the  accomplishment  of  social  good.  Government 
is  not  feared  as  master  but  is  looked  to  as  a  faith- 
ful servitor.  The  sphere  of  government  is  being 
enlarged  that  it  may  the  better  serve  its  master, 
the  people. 

J  There  are  many  who  view  the  increase  in  gov- 
ernmental activity  with  alarm,  seeing  in  this  phase 
of  our  political  life  the  most  serious  menace  to 


I 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  123 

individual  liberty.  These  people  are  holding  to 
a  discarded  view  of  life  and  of  the  development 
of  political  institutions.  They  are  under  the 
influence  of  a  system  of  thought  which  was  pro- 
ductive of  much  of  modern  liberahsm  in  present 
day  government,  but  this  system  has  experienced 
the  common  fate,  for  having  achieved  its  goal, 
it  has  ceased  to  have  an  objective  and  so  has  be- 
come conservative.  The  theory  of  the  law  of 
nature  and  natural  rights  furnished  a  splendid 
vantage  ground  for  the  fight  against  absolute 
power  in  the  monarchy;  it  was  the  source  of 
radical  and  revolutionary  ideas  in  an  age  of 
kings,  but  it  lost  its  power  when  popular  gov- 
ernments were  introduced. 

Let  us  see  a  little  nearer  how  this  came  about 
and  its  particular  relation  to  our  own  democracy. 
Under  the  influence  of  the  theory  of  natural 
rights  a  basis  had  been  found  for  the  theoretical! 
limits  to  autocratic  power.  As  this  theory  was 
worked  out  by  John  Locke  and  accepted  by  the 
founders  of  our  republic,  there  were  certain 
rights  which  men  enjoyed  in  a  state  of  nature 
before  civil  society  came  into  existence ;  a  part  of 
these  they  surrendered  by  the  terms  of  the  social 
contract  by  which  society  and  government  were 


124  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

established,  but  a  part  of  the  natural  rights  could 
not  be  surrendered  and  these  formed  the  barriers 
over  which  absolute  power  could  not  vault. 
Carrying  out  this  conception,  our  constitutions 
contain  Bills  of  Rights  which  are  regarded  as 
the  fundamental  limitations  upon  the  powers  of 
government.  But  Bills  of  Rights  are  sadly  out 
of  harmony  with  a  spirit  which  demands  the  rule 
of  the  will  of  the  majority;  they  are  a  species  of 
limitation  whose  raison  d'etre  is  gone.  They  were 
introduced  into  our  political  institutions  under 
the  influence  of  the  monarchical  tradition  when  it 
had  become  a  matter  of  course  to  regard  govern- 
ment with  a  hostile  eye  and  to  seek  to  put  re- 
straints upon  it.  The  fact  that  the  new  govern- 
ment was  founded  upon  popular  sovereignty  was 
not  sufficient  to  modify  the  inherited  conception 
and  so  the  people,  as  the  source  of  all  power,  set 
about  placing  limits  to  their  own  authority. 
/  The  presence  of  Bills  of  Rights  in  our  consti- 
/  tutions  became  traditional  but  the  theory  which 
gave  rise  to  them  has  been  discarded.  The  law  of 
nature  and  natural  rights  are  no  longer  seriously 
regarded  in  the  world  of  political  thought.  The 
only  laws  which  today  receive  consideration  are 
the  laws  of  the  land  and  the  only  rights  are  those 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  125 

which  are  assured  by  the  law  of  the  land.  The 
power  of  the  state  over  against  the  individual  has 
no  longer  to  confront  a  barrier  raised  up  by  the 
natural  and  inherent  rights  of  man.  The  present 
generation  sees  no  theoretical  limits  set  to  the 
things  the  state  may  do,  except  such  as  are  set  by 
the  nature  and  object  of  the  state  and  the  means 
which  it  may  use  to  accomplish  them,  but  not 
by  the  natural  rights  of  the  individual.  The  fear 
entertained  by  many  that  individual  liberty  is 
endangered  by  an  increase  in  state  activity  be- 
comes meaningless  when  we  adapt  our  concep- 
tion of  liberty  to  the  new  view.  If  liberty  is 
freedom  from  restraint,  then  every  law  is  a  re- 
striction of  liberty,  and  this  is  generally  the  view 
that  has  been  held  by  all  those  who  have  sought 
to  restrain  the  action  of  government.  But  liberty 
is  not  freedom  from  law  but  the  ability  to  live  in 
accordance  with  a  known  law,  common  to  all. 
The  law  is  the  source  of  rights  and  at  the  same 
time  of  liberty.  It  assures  us  of  a  field  in  which  to 
display  our  activities  and  so  long  as  the  law  in- 
creases this  field,  liberty  is  not  being  restrained 
but  enlarged.  So  it  is  that  restrictions  upon  the 
legislatures  of  the  character  we  have  been  dis- 
cussing must  be  regarded  as  out  of  harmony  with 


1«6  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

the  present  political  philosophy  and  therefore  not 
destined  to  endure. 

The  people  in  time  grew  tired  of  seeking  to 
accomplish  what  they  wished  through  the  nega- 
tive method  of  putting  restraints  upon  the 
i  legislatures  and  turned  to  positive  measures  cal- 
/  culated  to  insure  the  supremacy  of  their  will. 
For  the  first  time  since  the  Federal  government 
was  established — with  the  one  great  exception  of 
the  Civil  War — ^an  attempt  was  made  to  change 
the  form  of  the  government.  At  last  the  rev- 
erence for  a  representative  republican  form  of 
government  was  not  strong  enough  to  stay  the 
attack.  The  remedy  for  the  evil  conditions  by 
which  the  will  of  the  people  was  thwarted  had 
been  sought  in  many  a  by-path — now  the  open 
road  of  change  in  the  structure  of  government  was 
entered  upon  and  it  is  not  clear  where  the  jour- 
ney will  end.  The  old  has  not  been  destroyed 
save  in  municipal  government,  but  new  agencies 
for  the  expression  of  the  popular  will  have  been 
created — some  co-ordinate  with,  some  superior  to 
the  old  ones.  These  new  institutions  of  democ- 
/racy  are  the  commission  form  of  government  in 
I  municipalities,  the  initiative,  the  referendum, 
and  the  recall. 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  127 

The  commission  form  of  govermnent  in  cities 
is  the  most  radical  departure  from  the  traditional 
type  of  governmental  arrangement  which  we 
have  experienced,  and  it  is  something  without 
analogy  and  precedent  in  our  own  history.  The 
typical  form  of  municipal  government  was  long 
the  same  as  that  of  the  states  and  the  nation:  a 
form  in  which  there  was  a  single  executive,  a 
bicameral  legislative  body  and  a  judiciary.  In 
course  of  time  the  existence  of  two  houses  in  the 
legislative  body  of  a  city  was  seen  to  have  no 
logical  foundation  and  under  the  belief  that  it 
served  no  useful  purpose,  one  was  abolished. 

The  governments  of  om*  large  cities  rapidly  be- 
came the  most  corrupt  part  of  the  political  organi- 
zation. In  them  the  boss  of  the  worst  type  throve 
and  the  political  machinery  was  supported  by  the 
protection  it  could  afford  to  vice  and  crime  as  well 
as  to  special  business  interests.  Conditions  were  as 
shocking  as  can  well  be  imagined  and  government 
rested  no  more  upon  the  real  will  of  the  numeri- 
cal majority  than  in  autocratic  Russia.  The  gov- 
ernment of  our  cities  was  controlled  by  the 
"machine,"  or  by  the  "ring,"  or  by  the  "boss,"  as 
the  case  might  be  but  not  by  the  popular  will. 
The  supremacy  of  these  minority  interests  was 


128  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

due  to  many  causes  and  it  is  a  mistake  to  attempt 
to  explain  it  by  reference  to  a  single  cause;  but 
undoubtedly  the  wide  extension  of  the  suffrage 
and  the  complicated  machinery,  both  of  the  gov- 
ernment and  of  party  organization,  contributed 
largely  to  the  result.  We  are  not  primarily 
interested  in  municipal  government  for  its  own 
sake  and  therefore  we  need  not  pause  to  investi- 
gate the  causes  for  the  corrupt  political  condi- 
tions which  grew  up  nor  to  consider  the  many 
attempts  that  were  made  to  better  them,  for  we 
are  looking  to  see  the  forces  and  counterforces 
at  work  to  advance  and  retard  the  development  of 
the  rule  of  the  majority;  so  we  fasten  our  atten- 
tion only  upon  a  small  portion  of  the  whole  field 
of  municipal  reform. 

The  problem  of  city  government  in  time  be- 
came so  grave  as  to  warrant  the  view  that  democ- 
racy had  failed — and  that,  too,  in  the  field  of 
local  government,  the  field  in  which  it  had  always 
been  thought  that  its  success  would  be  easiest. 

Though  in  many  cities  the  council,  or  legislative 
body,  was  composed  of  a  single  chamber,  yet 
there  were  so  many  departments  and  commissions 
and  authority  had  been  so  completely  parceled 
out  among  them,  that  it  was  well-nigh  impossible 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  1^9 

to  fix  responsibility  upon  any  one  for  failure 
or  wrong  doing.  Frequently  the  part  played 
by  the  executive  or  the  legislative  could  not  easily 
be  discerned  and  the  mass  of  the  people  did  not 
know  upon  whom  to  place  the  blame  when  things 
went  wrong.  There  was  no  responsible  authority 
anywhere  in  city  government;  the  real  authority 
was  outside  the  government  and  officials,  instead 
of  feeling  responsible  to  the  people,  felt  beholden 
to  the  political  boss  through  whom  preferment 
had  come  and  to  whom  they  must  look  for  future 
rewards.  There  was  no  c^centration^f  power 
but,  under  the  old  theory  of  the  separation  of 
governmental  functions,  it  had  been  widely  dis- 
tributed so  that  no  one  person  should  be  too 
strong.  The  inevitable  consequence  had  been 
that  the  people  could  not  watch  all  their  servants 
all  the  time;  had  they  attempted  to  do  so  they 
would  have  had  little  time  to  devote  to  their  or- 
dinary pursuits.  Under  such  conditions  it  was 
not  surprising  that  professional  politicians  ap- 
peared to  whom  it  was  worth  while  from  a  finan- 
cial standpoint  to  devote  all  their  time  to  the 
business  of  nominating  candidates,  conducting 
elections,  determining  appointments  and  to  all 
the  other  things  necessary  for  the  successful 
manning  of  the  government. 


130  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

Under  the  existing  form  of  city  government 
there  was  no  opportimity  for  any  one  within  the 
government  to  assume  a  position  of  leadership. 
There  was  Httle  honor  or  distinction  attached  to 
mimicipal  service  because  there  was  no  chance  for 
the  display  of  talents  of  a  high  order,  so  men 
sought  office  for  the  financial  rewards  alone.  The 
natural  consequence  was  the  development  of 
leadership  outside  of  government  and  within  the 
party.  By  this  means  the  boss  of  the  successful 
party  was  the  boss  of  the  city  and  the  profession 
of  boss  was  highly  remunerative. 

Against  such  conditions  as  existed  and  in  a 
measure  still  exist  in  our  cities,  there  was  constant 
rebelhon  but  with  little  success  until  the  introduc- 
tion, under  the  pressure  of  a  great  calamity,  of 
the  commission^  system.  The  ne^iidea  involved 
was  that^f  thejcentrajization  of  powerpboth 
executive  and  legislative,  in  a  single  small  group 
of  elected  officials, — the  commission.  The  plan 
involved  the  entire  repudiation  of  the  theory  that 
liberty  was  possible  only  where  authority  was 
divided — a  theory  which  had  been  part  and  parcel 
of  our  political  thought  and  institutions  since  the 
establishment  of  the  government.  The  new  sys- 
tem rested  upon  the  theoryjthat  power-fawLce- 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  131 

sponsibility  are  co-ordinate  in^Qj^ermnent  and 
thaFtEe"oniy  way  of  securing  responsibility  is  to 
locate  it  in  definite  persons  by  giving  them  the 
power.  Jefferson  thought  that  the  way  to  secure 
responsibility  was  by  frequent  elections  and  that 
so  long  as  they  were  retained,  liberty  would  be 
safe.  Where  annual  elections  cease,  there 
tyranny  begins !  We  know  from  experience  that 
frequency  of  elections  has  not  brought  a  sense  of 
responsibility  to  the  people  on  the  part  of  those 
elected  and  that  a  separation  of  the  powers  of 
government  is  sure  to  produce  weakness  but  not 
necessarily,  nor  consequently,  good  government. 

The  commission  form  of  municipal  government 
spread  rapidly  and  has  been  adopted  by  hundreds 
of  cities  all  over  the  Union.  As  yet,  however,  it 
has  not  been  adopted  by  any  large  city  nor  has  it 
won  its  way  to  a  general  acceptance.  Its  oppo- 
nents still  decry  it  as  undemocratic  and  ansto- 
cratical — even  oligarchical — placing,  as  it  does, 
the  entire  management  and  direction  of  the 
affairs  of  the  mimicipality  in  the  hands  of  the 
commission. 

It  is  contended,  moreover,  that  so  soon  as  the 
first  fervor  is  over,  old_conditions  will  retumJbut 
with  an  added  opportunity  to  the  bosses  who  will 


133  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

find  it  easier  to  control  the  nomination  and 
election  of  the  few  commissioners  than  of  an 
executive  and  a  nmnerous  council,  and  that  a 
commission  controlled  by  a  boss  will  place  the 
city  absolutely  in  his  hands. 

Such  an  objection  raises  a  fundamental  ques- 
tion which  must  be  squarely  met.  The  form  of 
government  will  not  of  itself  produce  good  or 
bad  government  for  the  character  of  government 
depends  upon  the  character  of  the  people  who 
control  it.  The  form  of  government  may,  how- 
ever, contribute  to  the  ease  with^ which  the  major- 
ity or  a  few  shall  be  able  to  control  and  democracy 
cannot  expect  more  of  the  form  of  government 
than  that  it  shall  make  easy  the  supremacy  of 
the  will  of  the  majority.  It  is  undeniable  that 
it  is  easier  for  the  people  to  watch  half  a  dozen 
men  in  whom  is  concentrated  all  authority  and 
upon  whom  rests  all  responsibility  than  to  watch 
many  men  among  whom  authority  and  responsi- 
bility are  divided.  Therefore  we  may  regard  the 
adoption  of  the  commission  form  of  government 
as  a  distinct  step  toward  the  possibility  of  real 
majority  rule.  1 

The  initiative  and  the  referendum  have  been 
advocated  and  introduced  in  order  to  render  th( 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  133 

popular  will  more  effective.  They  are  a  product 
of  the  distrust  of  the  legislatures  and  the  feeling 
that  the  only  way  of  securing  the  will  of  the  peo- 
ple was  to  supply  a  means  for  its  immediate  and 
direct  expression.  Representatives  had  not 
represented  the  people  but  the  individuals  and 
organizations  and  business  interests  which  had 
secured  their  nomination  and  financed  their  cam- 
paign, until  some  direct  method  of  legislation 
seemed  to  be  imperatively  demanded  or  else 
democracy  was  a  failure.  The  place  of  the  initia- 
tive and  the  referendum  in  the  general  theory  of 
government  was  not  the  force  which  led  to  their 
adoption.  They_h^ve  been  introduced  as  emer- 
gency measures,  to  meet  a  particular  situation 
and  with  the  expectation  that  they  would  not  be 
the  normal  and  usual  processes  for  legislation, 
but  would  be  reserved  for  the  special  occasions, 
should  they  arise,  when^  the.  legislatures  failed  to 
carry  out  the  wishes  ofthe^  people.  The  belief 
was  general  that  the  possibility  of  using  them 
would  render  their  use  unnecessary,  but  the  course 
of  events  wherever  they  have  been  adopted  seems 
to  show  a  tendency^jo^ep^rtJ[rom  the  j^axly 
conception  of  an  exceptional  agency  and  to  re- 
gard  them_as^  normal   and   usual   methods  pf 


134  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

government.  The  people  feel,  or  are  induced  to 
believe,  that  the  way  to  secure  the  necessary  and 
proper  legislation  is  to  make  it  themselves  through 
these  instrumentalities.  The  legislatures  have 
not  been  abolished,  to  be  sure,  but  have  been  left 
undisturbed  in  the  possession  of  all  their  powers 
and  functions,  only  with  the  initiative  and  the 
ref erendimi  as  concurrent  and  competing  legisla- 
tive organs. 

The  introduction  of  the  initiative  and  referen- 
dum is  almost  as  great  a  departure  from  our 
previous  theory  of  government  as  is  the  commis- 
sion form  of  government  for  cities.  The  separa- 
tion of  the  powers  of  government  carried  with 
it  the  theory  of  a  system  of  checks  and  balances, 
by  which  the  executive  would  serve  as  a  check 
upon  the  legislative,  the  legislative  upon  the  exec- 
utive, and  the  judiciary  upon  both;  moreover  the 
two  branches  of  the  legislature  should  serve 
checks  upon  each  other  and  for  this  purpose  they 
were  given  terms  of  different  lengths  and  were 
chosen  from  different  territorial  areas.  In  th 
last  analysis  the  people  could  use  the  power  resid- 
ing in  them  to  check  the  whole  government  should 
it  be  necessary  by  an  amendment  to  the  Constitu 
tion.    But  the  process  of  amendment  was  made 


I 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  135 

quite  difficult  in  order  that  changes  should  not 
be  frequent.  In  fact,  in  some  of  the  state  con- 
stitutions amendment  could  take  place  only  at 
stated  intervals.  The  real  reliance  for^he 
supremacy  of  the  will  of  the  people  was  placed 
in^thesy^tem^fc^ 

elective_principle.  Experience  under  the  con- 
ditions ofjrequent  elections  of  numerous  officials 
has  shown  the  difficulty,  jf^not  the  impossibility, 
of^jpopular  control^f_tfiejigminajion_or  election. 
These  fall  into  the  hands  of  the  professional  poli- 
tician and  officials  are  consequently  responsible 
to  them.  In  addition  the  carefully  elaborated 
system  of  checks  and  balances  has,  by  its  com- 
plexity, rendered  easier  the  control  of  govern- 
ment by  private  interests  for  it  has  increased  the 
difficulty  of  locating  responsibility. 

The  referendum  is  to  be  regarded  as  an  addi- 
tional check  upon  the  action  of  government,  since 
it  puts  into  the  hands  of  the  people  a  quick  and 
easy  method  of  checking  a  legislature  that  seeks 
to  disregard  the  will  of  the  people,  while  the 
initiative  goes  a  step  beyond  this  in  that  through 
it  the  people  may  take  the  lead  and  entirely  dis- 
pense with  any  action  on  the  part  of  the  legisla- 
ture.   It  is  in  reality  the  removal  of  a  check  upon 


136  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

the  action  of  the  majority.  The  whole  system  of 
American  governments  was  cleverly  devised  to 
protect  the  minority  by  making  it  extremely 
difficult  for  the  majority  to  control  all  the 
branches  of  government  at  the  same  time.  The 
fact  that  power  was  allotted  among  the  dif- 
ferent departments;  that  there  were  different 
methods  of  selecting  the  officials  and  that  they 
served  different  terms  will  sufficiently  illustrate 
the  opportunities  for  the  minority  to  block  the 
majority.  The  initiative  has  swept  away  most 
of  the  defenses  which  had  been  erected  in  behalf 
of  the  minority  and  has  exposed  it  to  the  direct 
attack  of  the  majority.  Time  after  time  the 
people  sought  to  make  their  will  effective  by  some 
reform  and  each  time  the  result  was  disappoint- 
ing, but  none  of  these  reforms  touched  the  frame- 
work of  government.  In  the  initiative  and  the 
referendum  violent  hands  are  laid  upon  the  old 
theory  and  a  new  principle  is  introduced — ^the 
principle  that  the  rule  of  the  majority  should  be 
made  easy,  not  difficult.  To  this  extent  the  fun- 
damentally illogical  theory  of  a  government  by 
the  people  in  which  it  was  extremely  difficult  for 
the  people  to  govern,  has  been  removed. 

It  has,  however,  by  no  means  been  conclusively 


I 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  137 

demonstrated  that  the  introduction  of  the  new 
method  and  principle  will  accomplish  the  results 
desired.  It  may  suffer  the  same  fate  which  has 
overtaken  previous  efforts  to  translate  the  will 
of  the  people  into  effective  action  and  become 
the  instrument  of  the  forces  which  seek  to  con- 
trol government  in  the  interest  of  their  private 
fortunes.  Already  there  are  those  who  think 
they  see  the  change  taking  place;  they  point  to 
the  fact  that  with  the  double  system  of  elections 
necessitated  by  the  direct  primary  and  with  the 
added  elections  entailed  by  the  frequent  use  of 
the  recall,  the  average  citizen  has  grown  or  will 
grow  weary  of  so  much  voting  and  that  it  is 
becoming  more  difficult  "to  get  out  the  vote" ;  in 
short  popular  enthusiasm  is  slackening  and  when 
this  happens,  then  comes  the  opportunity  for  the 
man  whose  personal  fortunes  and  selfish  interests 
make  it  worth  while  for  him  to  maintain  his  in- 
terest. Aristotle,  speaking  in  criticism  of  Plato's 
view  that  if  there  were  community  of  wives  and 
of  goods  all  men  would  have  an  equal  love  for 
all  children  and  the  public  good,  declared  that 
that  which  was  common  to  all  was  least  regarded 
by  each,  and  this  view  is  correct  now  as  then. 
What  is  a  matter  of  the  public  good  never  holds 


138  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

the  same  compelling  interest  as  that  which  is 
matter  of  private  profit — and  so  it  is  that  the 
man  whose  selfish  interests  can  be  served  through 
a  control  of  the  government  will  ever  be  ready  to 
take  advantage  of  any  lack  of  watchfulness  on 
the  part  of  the  people. 

In  addition  to  the  effect  which  has  just  been 
considered,  the  initiative  and  the  referendum  are 
putting  upon  the  electorate  an  impossible  task 
in  that  the  number  of  measures  to  be  considered 
at  each  election  is  so  great  and  their  character 
so  complex  that  it  is  impossible  for  the  voter  to 
have  an  intelhgent  opinion  regarding  them.  The 
number  of  measures  to  be  voted  for  is  having  a 
history  which  parallels  that  of  the  elective  offi- 
cials. Originally  few  in  number,  they  have  in- 
creased to  such  an  extent,  due  to  the  increase  in 
population  and  the  extension  of  the  elective  prin- 
ciple, that  it  is  now  a  practical  impossibility  for 
the  voter  to  have  personal  knowledge  of  the  can- 
didates. For  this  knowledge,  he  has  been  com- 
pelled to  substitute  party  loyalty  and  vote  for 
the  mass  of  candidates  nominated  by  his  party. 
At  the  primary,  his  condition  is  little  better.  So 
it  is  rapidly  becoming  with  respect  to  the  meas- 
ures on  the  ballot.    The  remedy  which  has  been 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  139 

proposed  for  the  former  is  the  short  ballot  but 
as  to  the  latter  there  is  as  yet  no  suggestion  of  an 
adequate  remedy. 

The  last  of  the  newer  institutions  for  the  bet- 
ter expression  of  the  will  of  the  people  is  the 
recall.  Until  a  comparatively  recent  time  the 
American  system  of  government  might  very 
properly  have  been  said  to  rim  by  the  clock. 
PubHc  officials  were  chosen  at  stated  intervals 
and  only  death  or  resignation  brought  an  earlier 
termination  of  their  careers  than  the  end  of  the 
term  for  which  they  were  chosen.  Impeachment 
existed  but  it  could  no  longer  be  considered  a 
political  measure ;  its  sole  purpose  was  to  remove 
those  from  office  who  were  legally  unfit. 

With  the  disappearance  of  impeachment  as  a 
method  of  removing  public  officials  because  of 
the  political  policy  which  they  pursued,  we  were 
left  without  any  means  of  getting  rid  of  an 
elected  official  who  did  not  carry  out  the  wishes 
of  his  constituents.  There  was  nothing  to  do  but 
wait  till  the  next  election  period  came  round 
and  even  then  it  was  very  difficult  to  make  re- 
sponsibility effective.  The  recall  is  intended  to 
make  it  possible  to  exercise  control  over  an  elec- 
tive official  at  any  time  during  his  term  of  office. 


140  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

The  theory  back_of_it  is  the  supremacj^  of  the 
will  of  the  people  at  ea^hjiidLjej^ery^  ^noment. 
instead  of  a~repfesentative  looking  forward  to 
the  termination  of  the  period  for  which  he  was 
elected  as  the  day  of  reckoning,  he  must  feel  that 
it  is  in  the  power  of  the  majority  to  hold  him 
responsible  at  any  time  for  any  of  his  acts.  It 
is  another  departure  from  the  old  theory  of  a 
representative  government  in  which  the  represen- 
tatives should  enjoy  a  fixity  of  tenure  which  should 
make  them  independent  of  the  passing  fancies 
of  the  people. 

We  must  remember  that  the  Federal  Con- 
stitution was  framed  by  men  who  felt  a 
lively  distrust  of  too  much  democracy.  They 
wanted  a  representative  government  in  which  the 
representatives  should  not  be  merely  reflectors  of 
the  prevalent  feelings  of  their  constituents  but 
should  be  sufficiently  removed  from  the  popular 
passions  toi^nable  them  to  have  independent  opin- 
ions of  their  own_ iiropposition  to  those  of  the 
people.  This  distrust  of  democracy  has  disap- 
peared naturally  enough  with  the  triumph  of 
the  popular  will  and  its  consciousness  of  its  own 
power.  The  difference  in  attitude  may  be  ex- 
pressed perhaps  by  saying  that  the  "Fathers" 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  141 

were  legislating  for  the  people  while  now  the 
people  are  legislating  for  themselves.  They  do 
not  distrust  themselves  and  therefore  they  do  not 
wish  their  representatives  to  be  so  far  removed 
from  a  sense  of  responsibility  that  they  cannot  be 
reached  till  next  election.  They  have  wished  to 
make  it  possible  to  have  the  next  election  come 
whenever  it  seems  that  a  representative  is  not 
representing  his  constituents.  Undoubtedly  the 
immediate  cause  for  the  introduction  of  the  recall 
was  the  fact  that  representatives  had  lost  the 
sense  of  responsibility  to  the  people  and  were 
obedient  to  the  political  bosses. 

The  recall  has  been  very  widely  introduced  in 
connection  with  the  conmiission  form  of  govern- 
ment for  cities,  and  in  a  few  instances  it  has  been 
made  state-wide  and  appUcable  to  all  elected  offi- 
cials, except  to  the  Federal  representatives.  The 
theory  of  the  recall,  in  so  far  as  it  applies  to 
legislative  representatives,  intensifies  the  theory 
that  a  representative  is  peculiarly  such  of  the 
particular  district  by  which  he  is  selected  and  not 
of  the  whole  of  which  the  district  is  a  part.  It  has 
always  been  the  theory  of  the  British  Parliament 
that  it  incorporated  in  itself  the  British  people 
and  a  member  of  Parliament,  though  chosen  by  a 


142  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

district,  represents  the  whole  people.  In  the 
United  States  the  theory  has  been  reversed  and 
a  member  of  the  Senate  represents  the  state,  a 
member  of  the  House  of  Representatives  and  the 
members  of  the  state  legislature  represent  the 
particular  districts  by  which  they  are  elected. 
Only  the  President  represents  the  people  of  the 
United  States,  and,  to  a  somewhat  less  degree, 
the  governors  represent  the  people  of  the  states. 
There  remains  still  to  mention  the  popular 
election  of  United  States  Senators  as  the  most 
recent_chaiige  in  thestructure  of  our  govern- 
m^taljy^ten^ookm^  toward  the  supremacy  of 
thejeople.  This  change  is  no  less  strikingTh 
significance  than  the  introduction  of  the  initia- 
tive, the  referendum  and  the  recall  and  scarcely 
less  important  in  its  results.  Its  consequence  for 
the  movement  we  have  been  following  is  to  be 
found  in  the  fact  that  it  touches  the  structure  of 
the  Federal  government  while  the  others  have 
been  limited  to  some  of  the  states  and  some  cities. 
Not  even  the  Federal  Constitution  is  too  sacred 
for  change  at  the  hands  of  a  majority  bent  on 
making  its  will  easily  felt  in  the  control  of 
government.  Convinced  that  the  privileged  few 
have  sought  to  control  government  for  their  own 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  148 

selfish  purposes,  the  many  are  seeking  to  make 
easy  the  election  of  officials  and  the  control  of 
government  in  the  interest  of  the  masses.  It  is 
too  early  to  foresee  the  effect  of  this  change  upon 
the  character  of  the  Senate  but  it  is  safe  to  predict 
that  henceforth  Senators  will  be  more  responsive 
to  popular  sentiment. 


CHAPTER  VII 

THE    SIMPLIFICATION    OF    GOVERNMENT 

Democracy  in  the  United  States  has  come  to 
[mean  the  supremacy  of  the  will  of  the  numerical 
majority.  From  the  beginning  our  govern- 
mental institutions  have  rested  upon  the  founda- 
tion of  popular  sovereignty  and  the  will  of  the 
people  has  been  in  the  last  analysis  the  ultimate 
power.  Yet  the  history  of  our  political  struggles 
shows  two  particulars  in  which  we  have  departed 
from 'the  conceptions  of  the  "Fathers"  and  the 
ideas  underlying  the  structure  of  our  government 
as  set  forth  in  the  Constitution.  In  the  framing 
of  the  early  constitutions  and  notably  in  the  Fed- 
eral Constitution,  there  was  present  as  a  guiding 
principle,  a  fear  and  distrust  jif-.alLgovernments, 
whatever  their  character  might  be,  and  a  particu-  ^i 
lar  distrust  of  the  jnass_of^tiie  people  conse-"" 
quentty  constitutions  were  framed  for  the  purpose 
of  restricting  the  action  of  government  so  that  it 
could  not  do  harm  and  likewise  to  prevent  the 

144 


I 


MAJORITY  RULE  145 

popular  will  from  finding  immediate  realization 
through  the  action  of  government.    Fear  of  gov- 
ernment was  combined  with  the  view  that  the  less/ 
government  there  was,  the  greater  was  the  free- 
dom of  the  individual. 

The  result  was  a  system  of  governments  of 
strictly  limited  and  delegated  powers  and  so  care- 
fully balanced,  part  against  part,  and  power 
against  power,  that  years  might  be  required  for 
even  an  overwhelming  numerical  majority  to 
make  its  will  effective.  The  governments  estab- 
lished were  representative  republics  in  which  the 
minority  found  the  amplest  protection  and  prop- 
erty a  very  large  representation.  Today,  the 
rule  of  the  numerical  majority  is  accepted  in 
theory  and  in  practice  the  circle  of  voters  is  an 
ever  widening  one. 

There  is  no  fear  of  government  nor  is  the  de- 
mocracy desirous  of  limiting  the  sphere  of 
governmental  action.  On  the  contrary,  the 
people  are  constantly  demanding  that  govern- 
ment shall  perform  ever  greater  services  in  behalf 
of  the  popular  well-being.  The  growth  in  the 
complexity  of  civilization  and  the  problems  of 
society  have  forced  upon  government  a  greater 
field  of  action.    Into  this  field  the  people  are  not 


146  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

afraid  to  have  government  enter  if  it  truly  rep- 
resents the  popular  will.  The  quarrel  with  gov- 
ernment has  been  that  it  did  not  represent  and 
the  majority  of  reform  movements  from  Jeffer- 
son's election  in  1800  until  today  have  had  for 
their  object  a  truer  and  more  direct  representa- 
tion of  the  will  of  the  people.  The  movement, 
then,  has  been  twofold;  toward  a  larger  sphere 
of  action  on  the  part  of  government  and  a  truer 
representation  of  the  popular  will.  More  re- 
cently the  effort  to  secure  the  supremacy  of  the 
will  of  the  people  has  been  away  from  truer 
representation  and  toward  a  more  direct  expres- 
sion of  the  will  of  the  people.  New  agencies  of 
government  have  been  introduced  whose  purpose 
has  been  to  enable  the  numerical  majority  to  give 
direct  expression  to  its  will  and  have  that  expres- 
sion thereby  realized  in  some  concrete  act  of 
government. 

The  attempts  which  have  been  made  to  secure 
a  truer  representation  of  the  popular  will  and  to 
give  a  more  immediate  expression  to  the  will  of 
the  majority  have  not  always  been  successful. 
In  fact  a  fatal  lack  of  success  seems  to  have 
pursued  each  one,  so  that  they  have  succeeded 
each  other  in  rapid  succession.    Some  new  devise 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  147 

for  restoring  the  government  to  the  hands  of  the 
people  is  advocated  and  adopted;  for  a  brief 
period  it  seems  to  aceomphsh  its  purpose,  but 
eventually  popular  control  of  government  is  seen 
to  be  no  nearer  than  before.  The  new  devise  has 
passed  into  the  hands  of  a  few  or  has  produced  a 
condition  which  makes  more  difficult  the  control 
of  government  by  the  many. 

Such  was  the  case  with  the  principle  of  elec- 
tion advocated  by  Jefferson.  Frequency  of 
elections  and  an  increase  in  the  number  of  elected 
officials  made  the  control  of  parties  and  of  elec- 
tions by  the  bosses  an  easy  matter.  Rotation  in 
office  and  to  the  victor  belongs  the  spoils, 
strengthened  the  hold  of  those  who  made  a  busi- 
ness of  politics  and  lessened  the  possibility  of 
control  by  the  democratic  majority  whom  Jack- 
son sought  to  put  in  power.  The  nominating 
convention  has  become  the  tool  of  the  interests 
and  universal  manhood  suffrage  only  enlarged 
the  scope  of  the  bosses'  activities  and  created  the 
demand  for  closer  organization  with  consequent 
loss  of  control  to  the  masses  and  gain  to  the 
few  who  controlled  the  organization.  The  secret 
ballot,  state  control  of  elections  and  the  direct 
primary   have   not    eliminated    corruption    nor 


148  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

destroyed  the  power  of  the  organization.  The 
initiative,  the  referendum  and  the  recall  are  los- 
ing ground  in  the  states  where  they  have  been 
adopted.  The  commission  form  of  city  govern- 
ment, combined  with  the  recall  and  the  short 
ballot,  has  done  much  to  purify  political  condi- 
tions in  several  hundred  towns  and  cities  through- 
out the  countrj^  though  its  application  to  the  very 
large  cities  has  not  yet  been  made. 

With  the  exception  of  the  commission  form  of 
government  for  cities,  the  reforms  which  have 
been  undertaken  have  proceeded  upon  the  as- 
sumption that  the  form  of  our  government,  its 
mechanical  construction  so  to  speak,  was  admir- 
able and  not  in  need  of  change.  This  has  been 
due  in  part  at  least  to  the  veneration  of  the  con- 
stitution and  the  principles  of  government  upon 
which  it  rested  that  began  to  grow  up  shortly 
after  its  adoption  and  that  culminated  in  the  Civil 
War.  The  trouble  was  thought  to  lie  in  some 
alien  condition  that  prevented  the  people  from 
expressing  their  will  through  our  excellent  gov- 
ernmental arrangements. 

The  problem  which  we  as  a  people  have  been 
seeking  to  solve  is  to  discover  some  method  by 
which  the  will  of  the  people  can  easily  find  ex- 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  149 

pression  in  concrete  acts  of  government;  the  de- 
mand for  an  increased  activity  on  the  part  of 
the  state  compels  us  to  seek  at  the  same  time  for 
an  efficient  form  of  government.  Gradually  the 
conviction  is  gaining  ground  that  the  structure 
of  our  government  is  not  conducive  to  the  ac- 
complishment of  either  of  these  ends. 

The  American  system  of  government  is  above 
all  a  complex  system.  In  the  first  place  gov- 
ernmental powers  have  been  divided  between  the 
state  governments  and  the  Federal  government 
and  within  the  states  the  principle  of  local  self- 
government  has  led  to  the  establishment  of  num- 
erous subordinate  political  corporations  for  the 
performance  of  governmental  functions.  The 
principle  of  the  separation  of  the  three  branches 
of  government,  the  executive,  the  legislative  and 
the  judiciary  has  been  fundamental  in  state  and 
Federal  governments  and  until  very  recently  in 
large  measure  in  municipal  governments  also. 
Each  branch  is  so  elected  and  given  such  powers 
as  will  enable  it  to  check  every  other  and  in  the 
legislature  each  house  acts  as  a  check  upon  the 
other.  The  powers  of  government  are  delegated 
and  limited  and  the  courts  by  declaring  laws 
unconstitutional  can  check  any  tendency  in  the 


150  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

other  two  departments  of  government  to  go  be- 
yond the  bounds  set  by  the  constitution.  This 
complexity  was  partly  due  to  the  exigencies  of  the 
case  but  more  largely  to  the  views  held  regarding 
the  inherent  character  of  government.  The  need 
for  a  government  of  all  the  states  and  a  govern- 
ment for  each  state  made  a  division  of  powers 
and  a  delineation  of  those  powers  essential,  but 
the  conception  of  government  as  having  an  in- 
herent tendency  toward  tyranny  and  oppression 
led  to  the  adoption  of  the  principle  of  the  separ- 
ation of  the  powers  of  government  and  the  theory 
of  checks  and  balances  in  order  that  no  one  de- 
partment might  become  supreme  and  ^pervert 
government.  Naturally  it  was  the  executive 
branch  which  was  most  feared,  both  from  the 
prevalence  of  the  absolute  monarchy  in  the 
eighteenth  century  and  from  the  conduct  of 
George  III  toward  the  colonies.  This  idea  of 
limiting  and  checking  the  powers  of  government 
harmonizes  very  well  with  the  desire  that  the 
popular  will  should  not  too  readily  find  expres- 
sion, lest  it  should  prove  as  tyrannical  as  the 
monarch. 

This  complexity  of  structure  in  our  system  of 
government  has  always  been  regarded  as  part  of 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  151 

its  merit  and  is  still  cherished  by  many  as  the 
most  necessary  as  well  as  the  most  excellent  prin- 
ciple of  our  government,  yet  the  question  is  daily 
being  more  insistently  pressed  whether  or  not  this 
complexity  may  not  be  responsible  for  the  most 
of  the  trouble  hitherto  experienced  in  securing 
efficiency  and  majority  rule.  When  the  Union 
was  formed  and  the  complex  system  of  govern- 
ment put  into  operation,  the  population  of  the 
whole  country  was  not  equal  to  that  of  New 
York  state  at  the  present  time.  Moreover  life  in 
all  its  phases  was  simple ;  transportation  and  com- 
munication were  carried  on  as  they  had  been  for 
centuries  previous ;  there  were  few  manufactures 
and  no  large  cities  with  their  multitude  of  prob- 
lems; socially,  politically  and  economically  the 
life  of  the  individual  and  of  the  community  was 
carried  on  in  the  simplest  terms ;  consequently  the 
business  of  governing  was  equally  simple.  There 
were  no  pohtical  parties,  little  foreign  politics, 
and  few  domestic  problems  of  moment  beyond 
that  of  securing  adequate  revenue  for  the  Fed- 
eral government.  Under  such  conditions  the  sim- 
plicity of  life  rendered  the  complexity  of  the 
governmental  system  less  marked,  and  the  early 
success  of  these  republican  forms  of  government 


162  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

created  the  tradition  that  they  were  the  best 
form  of  government.  So  soon,  however,  as  the 
life  of  the  eomitry  and  the  business  of  govern- 
ment began  to  grow  complex,  the  new  agency  of 
party  was  developed  outside  of  but  alongside  of 
government  as  a  unifying  force  to  overcome  the 
lack  of  co-ordination  in  the  various  parts  of  gov- 
ernment. Parties  have  served  the  useful  purpose 
of  imifying  government  but  in  time  they 
have  become  so  complex  in  their  organization 
that  the  demand  has  arisen  for  their  control  by 
government. 

If  we  were  to  approach  the  problem  of  govern- 
ment from  the  purely  theoretical  standpoint,  we 
should  be  inclined  to  say  that  the  simplest  form 
of  government  was  the  most  efficient,  for  the  more 
complicated  the  arrangements,  the  greater  the 
loss  of  energy,  the  lack  of  economy  and  the  ab- 
sence of  responsibility.  The  simplicity  of  the 
monarchy  has  always  been  regarded  as  one  of 
the  principal  causes  of  its  success;  concentration 
of  power  in  a  single  individual  makes  decision 
easy  and  action  quick.  If  this  is  true  of  mon- 
archy, it  would  seem  self  evident  that  a  democ- 
racy should  seek  to  have  the  simplest  possible 
form  of  government,  for  the  greater  the  number 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  153 

of  persons  and  the  more  numerous  the  govern- 
mental agencies  whose  co-operation  is  necessary, 
the  more  difficult  it  is  to  secure  action. 

It  may  also  be  maintained  that  the  more  com- 
plex is  the  governmental  machinery,  the  more 
difficult  will  it  be  for  the  people  to  enforce  re- 
sponsibility for  the  acts  of  government.  In  our 
early  history  Jefferson  thought  that  frequent 
elections  were  sufficient  to  secure  responsibiUty  on 
the  part  of  the  representative  to  his  constituents ; 
it  still  remains  true,  of  course,  that  the  majority 
at  an  election  can  defeat  a  candidate  whose  ac- 
tion as  their  representative  had  displeased  them, 
but  it  is  very  difficult  to  know,  under  our  com- 
plex arrangements,  how  far  a  particular  person 
is  responsible  for  acts  of  government.  It  is  eas- 
ier in  the  case  of  an  executive  or  administrative 
official  than  in  that  of  a  legislator,  yet  even  in  the 
former  it  is  often  difficult  to  fix  the  responsibility, 
especially  if  it  be  in  regard  to  carrying  out  a  pro- 
gram in  which  the  legislature  participates. 

If  democracy  means  the  rule  of  the  majority 
and  if  it  be  admitted  that  the  present  problem  is 
to  find  a  form  of  government  which  shall  be  effi- 
cient for  the  increased  burden  constantly  placed 
upon  it  and  easily  and  quickly  responsive  to  the 


154  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

popular  will  and  truly  responsible  to  the  people 
for  its  acts,  then  a  simplification  either  of  life  or 
of  government  is  necessary.  It  is  beyond  the 
reach  of  possibility  that  life  will  grow  more  sim- 
ple; on  the  contrary  we  may  anticipate  a  con- 
stantly increasing  complexity  which  will  steadily 
enlarge  the  field  of  government  action.  It  would 
appear,  then,  the  part  of  wisdom  to  see  if  in  any 
particular  we  may  be  able  to  simplify  our  gov- 
ernmental arrangements. 

If  we  examine  some  of  the  more  recent  at- 
tempts  to  secure  the  supremacj^alihe  will  of  the 
people  in  affairs  of  government,  it  will  be  evi- 
dent that  the  initiative  and  the  ref erendimi  have 
the  tendency  to  complicate  the  machinery  of  gov- 
ernment still  further,  while  the  commission  form 
of  government  and  the  short  ballot  have  the 
opposite  effect.  The  former  are  losing  ground 
because  of  the  additional  burden  they  have  placed 
upon  the  already  overloaded  shoulders  of  the 
voters  and  the  enthusiasm  for  the  latter  rests 
upon  the  desire  for  a  simple  method  of  giving 
expression  to  the  popular  will,  to  the  promise  of 
efficiency  contained  in  it  and  to  the  prospect  of 
responsibility  which  it  offers. 

A  direct  democracy  in  the  government  of  the 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  155 

United  States  or  of  the  states  cannot  be  regarded 
as  possible  of  attainment;  the  people  can  never 
meet  together  to  discuss  or  formulate  measures, 
or  to  choose  officials,  and  the  initiative  and  the 
referendum  should,  at  best,  be  held  as  reserve 
measures  to  meet  emergency  occasions.  If  this 
be  true,  the  problem  of  finding  an  efficient  and  at 
the  same  time  a  popular  government  resolves 
itself  into  the  problem  of  so  arranging  the  struc- 
ture of  government  that  the  chosen  representative 
shall  be  able  to  carry  out  the  wishes  of  the  people 
and  be  held  responsible  for  any  failure  to  do  so. 
Once  again  we  are  forced  to  the  consideration 
of  what  changes  will  result  in  that  simplicity  of 
government  which  is  necessary  to  secure  these 
ends. 

In  undertaking  such  a  task  one  has  not  a  free 
field  in  which  to  operate  for  every  proposal  must 
be  conditioned  by  the  actual  facts  of  our  political 
experience.  To  attempt  to  formulate  a  plan  for 
the  accomplishment  of  these  objects  without  giv- 
ing heed  to  the  tastes  and  inclinations  of  the 
American  people  would  be  futile.  Yet  much 
can  be  accomplished  with  but  little  alteration  of 
the  plan  and  scheme  of  the  present  arrangements. 
Of  the  proposed  changes  looking  to  a  greater 


166  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

simplicity  in  our  governmental  structure,  all  that 
have  received  serious  consideration  affect  the 
state  and  municipal  governments  alone.  The 
view  is  prevalent  that  any  experiments  should  be 
made  upon  the  smaller  governing  bodies  since 
any  injury  resulting  would  be  less  far-reaching 
in  its  effects  and  more  easily  corrected.  Perhaps 
for  this  reason  in  part  the  remodelling  has  begun 
with  municipal  governments.  The  commission 
form  of  government  for  cities  represents  that 
simplicity  and  responsibility  and  its  success  has 
led  to  the  proposal  in  several  states  to  extend  the 
principle  to  the  state  government. 

In  the  commission  form,  power  is  concentrated 
in  the  hands  of  a  few  individuals  whose  acts  are 
open  to  the  public  view;  responsibility  for  their 
acts  may  be  enforced  with  comparative  ease 
through  the  recall.  This  concentration  of  legis- 
lative and  executive  powers  in  the  same  hands  is 
in  violent  conflict  with  the  principle  of  the  sep- 
aration of  the  powers  of  government  hitherto 
regarded  as  fundamental,  but  we  no  longer  fear 
to  entrust  power  to  the  government  so  long  as  it 
can  be  held  responsible  for  its  proper  use.  ' 

Our  state  governments  are  confessedly  ineffi- 
cient and  unresponsive  to  the  popular  will.    This 


I 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  157 

is  due  to  the  decentralization  of  governmental 
power  as  well  as  to  the  separation  of  the  branches 
of  government  and  the  system  of  checks  and  bal- 
ances. The  governor  has  become  in  large  measure 
a  legal  figurehead.  Though  it  is  supposedly  his 
duty  to  see  that  the  laws  are  enforced,  the  power 
to  enforce  them  has  been  put  in  the  hands  of  the 
state  officials  and  local  authorities,  elected  by  the 
people  and  in  no  sense  subject  to  the  control  of 
the  governor.  Such  a  decentralization  and  dissi- 
pation of  governmental  power  makes  responsi- 
bility for  the  enforcement  of  the  law  a  practical 
impossibihty.  Even  political  parties  are  unable 
to  secure  unity  of  action  amidst  such  diverse  ele- 
ments. In  the  past  few  years  the  poHtical  influ- 
ence and  importance  of  the  governorship  has  been 
enlarged  through  the  fact  that  governors 
have  more  frequently  been  also  leaders  of 
the  party  and  as  such  have  been  able  to  put 
through  a  legislative  program.  The  same  leader- 
ship is  more  apparent  in  the  presidency  than  in 
the  governorship. 

To  concentrate  the  executive  power  of  the 
states  in  the  hands  of  the  governor  and  a  cabinet 
or  council  appointed  by  him  and  acting  as  the 
heads  of  departments  would  be  to  establish  a 


158  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

condition  which  has  proved  acceptable  in  the 
national  government.  Such  an  arrangement 
would  contribute  greatly  to  the  efficiency  of  our 
state  governments  and  the  power  would  not  be 
dangerous  since  responsibility  for  its  exercise 
could  be  enforced.  Under  the  present  decentrali- 
zation authority  is  weakened  by  division  lest  it 
may  do  harm.  Under  a  cabinet  system  it  would 
be  strengthened  by  being  united  in  order  that  it 
might  do  good. 

If  we  advance  a  step  further  in  the  simplify- 
ing process  and  abolish  one  house  of  the  state 
legislature,  responsibility  for  legislation  will  be 
made  easier  and  inasmuch  as  no  real  difference 
underlies  the  basis  of  representation  in  the  two 
houses,  there  will  be  no  loss  of  representation  to 
any  element  of  the  state. 

As  a  further  step  toward  securing  responsi- 
bility in  the  government  thus  modified,  some 
co-ordination  of  the  executive  and  legislative 
branches  should  be  devised.  If  the  executive 
through  the  heads  of  the  departments  had  the 
right  to  frame,  introduce  and  advocate  bills,  and 
if  the  executive  and  the  legislature  were  chosen 
at  the  same  time,  it  would  be  possible  for  the 
voter  to  enforce  responsibility  upon  one  or  both 


J 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  169 

of  them.  Such  an  arrangement  would  not  leave 
the  legislative  branch  helpless  in  the  hands  of 
the  executive,  but  it  would  concentrate  and  cen- 
tralize responsibility  so  that  it  could  be  definitely 
and  accurately  meted  out  to  the  individuals  and 
the  party  meriting  reward  or  rebuke.  Under 
such  a  plan  responsibility  would  shift  from  indi- 
vidual to  party;  at  present  almost  the  only 
attempt  to  enforce  responsibility  is  upon  the 
individual  with  relatively  little  thought  for  the 
party. 

To  make  such  a  change  more  productive  of  a 
sense  of  responsibility  to  the  people  the  present 
statutory  and  constitutional  provisions  requiring 
that  a  representative  in  the  legislative  body  must 
reside  in  the  district  which  he  represents  should 
be  changed.  This  requirement,  which  is  well- 
nigh  universal  in  the  states,  and  which  custom 
has  prescribed  for  the  national  legislature, 
forces  the  representative  into  the  position  of  a 
representative  of  the  district  and  not  of  the  state 
or  the  nation.  Also  his  first  care  is  for  the  dis- 
trict and  his  best  efforts  are  directed  toward 
securing  its  good  will  through  appropriations  and 
appointments ;  he  finds  himself  compelled  to  view 
legislation  from  the  standpoint  of  its  effect  upon 


160  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

his  constituents  and  his  own  chances  for  re- 
election. Were  law  and  custom  changed  so  that 
a  man  might  represent  any  district  no  matter 
where  he  lived,  the  "pork  barrel"  as  an  institu- 
tion of  our  poUtical  life  would  disappear;  the 
representative  would  have  more  than  a  local  out- 
look and  yet  his  sense  of  responsibiUty  to  the 
people  would  be  enhanced. 

The  abohtion  of  the  residence  requirement 
would  produce  two  effects  of  the  utmost  conse- 
quence to  our  political  life;  it  would  make  of 
poUtics  a  legitimate  career,  and  it  would  make  the 
leaders  of  the  government  the  leaders  of  the 
party. 

Under  present  conditions  it  is  largely  a  matter 
of  chance  whether  or  not  a  man  can  enter  politi- 
cal life,  for  his  political  opinions  may  not  be  those 
of  the  majority  of  the  district  in  which  he  lives; 
in  order  to  enter  political  life  such  a  man  must 
move  his  residence  or  change  his  views.  Assum- 
ing that  he  holds  views  in  harmony  with  the 
majority  in  his  district  and  that  he  secures  an 
election,  the  chances  that  he  will  be  able  to  con- 
tinue in  politics  as  a  career  are  very  sHght.  No 
matter  how  able  he  may  be  nor  how  excellent  a 
public  servant,  his  career  is  liable  to  be  termin- 


^ 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  161 

ated  by  a  change  of  opinion  in  the  district  or  by 
a  change  even  within  his  own  party  within  the 
district.  In  either  event  he  is  left  stranded  and 
the  state  or  nation  may  lose  the  services  of  a  valu- 
able public  servant.  If  election  from  any  district 
were  possible,  men  could  and  would  look  upon 
political  life  as  a  career  upon  which  they  could 
enter  with  the  reasonable  expectation  of  being 
able  to  continue  in  it  if  their  talents  and  ability 
justified.  Such  men  would  find  their  satisfaction 
in  the  success  which  they  attained;  the  honor  of 
the  position  would  be  sufficient  reward.  Under 
our  present  system,  where  tenure  of  office  is  un- 
certain and  where  brevity  of  tenure  has  been  re- 
garded as  a  tenet  of  democratic  faith,  poUtics  as  a 
career  has  been  as  a  rule  impossible.  Politics  as 
a  business  has  been  followed  by  those  who  found 
it  financially  profitable  and  the  political  boss  oft- 
ener  than  not  holding  no  office,  has  sought  to 
control  government  for  selfish  purposes.  If  poli- 
tics can  be  made  a  career,  then  the  leaders  in 
government  will  be  more  permanent;  they  will 
likewise  become  the  leaders  of  the  party  and  poli- 
tics as  a  business  for  financial  profit  will  disap- 
pear with  the  political  boss.  When  the  leaders 
of  the  government  are  also  the  leaders  of  the 


162  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

party,  then  party  responsibility  can  be  enforced 
in  the  largest  degree;  moreover  when  this  co- 
ordination between  parties  and  the  government 
has  taken  place,  it  will  be  to  the  interest  of  the 
party  leaders  to  see  to  it  that  the  men  who  give 
promise  of  a  future  brilliant  career  shall  be  re- 
turned and  once  established  as  a  valuable  mem- 
ber, successive  elections  are  practically  assured. 
The  presence  of  parties  in  modem  political  life 
is  universal  but  the  evils  to  which  parties  have 
given  rise  have  led  some  to  demand  their  aboli- 
tion, and  in  California  the  legislature  has  passed 
an  act  providing  for  non-party  ballot.  The  ar- 
gument upon  which  this  action  was  made  to  rest 
is  that  parties  are  determined  in  the  United 
States  by  national  issues;  that  the  governing  of 
a  state  is  not  to  be  determined  in  accordance  with 
national  issues,  but,  like  the  government  of  cities, 
it  is  a  business  proposition  which  should  not  be 
decided  by  a  party  vote.  There  is  some  measure 
of  truth  in  the  statement  that  party  lines  are 
drawn  in  accordance  with  national  issues  but  there 
is  no  foundation  for  the  statement  that  the  gov- 
erning of  a  state  is  purely  a  matter  of  business 
administration  and  not  a  matter  of  policies.  So 
long  as  the  states  retain  control  of  property  and 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  163 

family  rights  it  can  scarcely  be  maintained  that 
questions  of  policy  are  not  involved.  It  is  true 
that  national  issues  sometimes  carry  a  party  into 
power  in  a  state  where  it  otherwise  would  not  have 
been  successful.  The  remedy  lies  in  not  holding 
state  elections  simultaneously  with  national  elec- 
tions; state  policies  can  then  be  judged  more 
nearly  on  their  own  merits ;  if  it  still  be  contended 
that  national  issues  will  sometimes  turn  the  scale, 
then  it  may  be  answered  that  better  so  than  to 
have  no  unifying  force  in  government  and  no 
leaders  for  the  formation  of  policies.  True  re- 
sponsibility can  be  achieved  only  through  party 
responsibility;  individuals  who  have  displeased 
the  constituency  may  be  defeated  but  to  accom- 
plish a  constructive  program  or  to  carry  out  a 
policy  there  must  be  a  party,  with  representatives 
pledged  to  that  program  or  policy,  which  may  be 
held  responsible  as  a  party  for  failure  to  carry 
it  out. 

One  more  change  remains  to  be  considered 
without  which  all  the  others  will  be  much  impaired 
in  value  and  which,  without  them,  would  never- 
theless do  much  to  produce  responsibility  in  gov- 
ernment. Almost  the  greatest  difficulty  which 
confronts  the  voter  is  the  task  of  knowing  some- 


164  AMERICAN  GOVERNMENT 

thing  about  the  persons  among  whom  he  is  called 
upon  to  make  choice.  The  number  of  elective 
offices  and  the  frequency  of  elections  have  made  it 
practically  impossible  for  the  voter  to  cast  his 
ballot  intelligently.  The  principle  of  election 
so  long  regarded  as  fundamental  in  the  democ- 
racy, has  resulted  in  placing  the  nomination,  and 
consequently  the  election,  of  candidates  in  the 
hands  of  the  bosses.  The  voter  must  vote  blindly 
and  generally  will  vote  for  the  candidates  of  the 
party  with  which  he  sympathizes.  Direct  pri- 
maries alone  will  not  remedy  the  evil  since  the 
number  will  still  be  far  beyond  what  the  average 
voter  will  have  the  time  and  opportimity  to 
investigate.  The  remedy  for  this  condition  is  the 
short  ballot  or  a  discarding  of  the  theory  that 
election  is  sufficient  to  secure  responsibility.  Too 
much  election  has  proved  ruinous  to  popular  con- 
trol. The  principle  of  the  short  ballot  if  adopted 
would  result  in  the  election  at  any  one  time  of 
only  a  few  individuals  and  the  placing  in  the 
hands  of  the  higher  executive  officials  the  ap- 
point of  all  those  subordinate  administrative 
officers  who  could  not  properly  be  put  upon  the 
permanent  civil  service  roll.  Judges  likewise 
should  be  appointed  instead  of  elected. 


AND  MAJORITY  RULE  165 

Whatever  changes  may  be  made  in  our  system 
of  governments,  of  one  thing  we  may  be  sure, 
no  change  which  does  not  contribute  to  an  easier 
expression  of  the  popular  will  or  'which  does  not 
increase  the  facility  with  which  government  per- 
forms its  tasks  will  endure.  Democracy  in  the 
United  States  demands  an  easy  and  efficient 
instrument  for  the  expression  of  its  will. 


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1912. 
Beard:     An  Economic   Interpretation   of   the   Consti- 
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Beard:     Economic  Origin  of  Jeffersonian  Democracy. 

Macmillan.     1915. 
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Short  Ballot  Organization.     1911. 
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Oregon.     Macmillan.     1915. 
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Macmillan.     1911. 
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1912. 
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Ginn  &  Co.     1893. 
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1901. 
Childs:      Short   Ballot  Principles.      Houghton,   Mifflin 

&  Co.     1911. 
Cleveland:     Organized  Democracy.     Longmans,  Green 

&  Co.     1913. 
Croly:     The  Promise  of  American  Life.     Macmillan. 

1909. 
Croly:    Progressive  Democracy.    Macmillan.     1914. 

166 


BIBLIOGRAPHY  167 

Dallinger:  Nominations  for  Elective  Office.  Long- 
mans, Green  &  Co.     1897. 

DeWitt:  The  Progressive  Movement.  Macmillan. 
1915. 

Dunning:  Essays  on  the  Civil  War  and  Reconstruc- 
tion.    Macmillan.     1898. 

Dunning:  Reconstruction,  Political  and  Economic. 
Harper  &  Bros.     1907. 

Eaton :     The  Oregon  System.     McClurg  &  Co.     1912. 

Elliott:  Biographical  Story  of  the  Constitution* 
Putnams.     1910. 

Farrand:  The  Framing  of  the  Constitution  of  the 
U.   S.     Yale  University  Press.      1913. 

Farrand:  Records  of  the  Federal  Constitution  of  1787. 
Yale  University  Press.     1911. 

The  Federalist:    Ford's  edition.     Holt  &  Co.     1898. 

Fish:  Civil  Service  and  the  Patronage.  Longmans, 
Green  &  Co.     1905. 

Ford:  Rise  and  Growth  of  American  Politics.  Mac- 
millan.    1898. 

Godkin:  Unforeseen  Tendencies  of  Democracy. 
Houghton,  Mifflin  &  Co.     1898. 

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Hodges:  The  Distrust  of  State  Legislatures — The 
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Holt:  Introduction  to  the  Study  of  Government. 
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James:  Applied  City  Government.  Harper  &  Bros. 
1914. 

Kales:  Unpopular  Government  in  the  United  States. 
Longmans,  Green  &  Co.     1913. 


168  BIBLIOGRAPHY 

Lobingier:     The  People's  Law.     Macmillan.     1909. 

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INDEX 


Adams,  J.,  aristocratic  Federal- 
ist, 36;  election  of,  57. 

Adams,  J.  Q.,  election  of,  67. 

Allen  and  Sedition  Acts,  cul- 
mination of  Federalist  legis- 
lation, 36;  called  forth  Vir- 
ginia and  Kentucky  Resolu- 
tions, 36;  79. 

Amendment,  of  constitutions, 
50-51;  difficulty  of,  135. 

Annapolis   Convention,   19. 

Articles  of  Confederation, 
based  on  equality  of  states, 
15;  weakness  of,  18-19; 
adopted  by  legislatures,  28. 

Assumption,  of  state  debts,  32. 

Bank,  government,  33;  and 
party  origin,  35. 

"Bargain   and  Corruption,"  67. 

Bills  of  Rights,  prefixed  to  state 
constitutions,  as  limitations, 
17;  in  English  history,  30;  in 
Constitution  of  United  States, 
31;  in  state  constitutions,  124. 

Boss,  control  of  party  by,  107; 
and  big  business,  109;  and 
municipal  government,  127- 
128. 

Bryce,  119. 

Business,  non-partisan,  110. 

Burgesses,  House  of,  bulwark 
of  liberty,  4. 

Cabinet,  in  state  government, 
157-158. 

Calhoun,  regarded  Union  as 
confederation,  45 ;  protagonist 
of  South,  80;  theory  of  Un- 
ion,   80-82;    view   of   democ- 


racy, 83;  "concurrent  major- 
ity," 83-86. 

California,  constitution  of 
1879,  120;  non-party  law,  162. 

Candidates,  self-proposed,  97. 
See  caucus  and  convention 
infra. 

Caucus,  congressional  in  dis- 
favor, 58;  first  development 
of,  98;  legislative,  98-100; 
"mixed,"  100 ;  congressional 
abandoned,  101,  control  of, 
105. 

Charles  I,  13. 

Checks  and  balances,  origin  of, 
24-26;  aided  control  of  gov- 
ernment by  the  few,  135. 

Church  Fathers,  origin  of  state 
in  fall  of  Adam,  25. 

CivO  War,  immediate  cause  of, 
89;  influence  upon  nature  of 
Union,  94-95. 

Clay,  64,  67. 

Colonial  settlement,  in  Virginia, 
largely  commercial  venture, 
2;  in  sympathy  with  Crown 
and  Church  of  England,  2; 
in  New  England,  due  to  reli- 
gious motive,  5. 

Colonies,  divergence  in  develop- 
ment of,  86. 

Commerce,  in  Virginia,  3-4;  fa- 
vored in  New  England  by 
physical  conditions,  6. 

Commission :  see  government 
infra. 

Committees,  party,  104. 

Concurrent  majority,  83-86. 


171 


172 


INDEX 


Congress,  powers  of,  under  Ar- 
ticles of  Confederation,  18. 
Constitution,  written,  based  on 
popular  sovereignty,  16;  dif- 
fers from  ordinary  laws,  21; 
of  United  States  adopted  by 
conventions,  29;  "loose"  and 
"strict"  construction  of,  34; 
parties  for  and  against  adop- 
tion of,  35;  worship  of,  66; 
a  compact,  81;  reverence  for, 
116;  size  of,  120. 
Contract,  social,  9. 
Convention,  Constitutional  of 
1787,  called,  30;  abandoned 
instructions,  21,  28;  appeal 
to  people  for  justification,  21 ; 
attitude  of,  toward  suprem- 
acy of  popular  will,  46; 
threatened  disruption  of,  78; 
original  view  of,  102. 

Nominating,  as  agent  of 
popular  will,  57-58;  an 
adaptation,  59;  theory  of, 
103;  introduction  of,  an 
anomaly,  106;  retained  for 
its  efficiency,  107;  ceases  to 
be  democratic,  107. 
Conventions,    for    adoption    of 

the  constitution,  29. 
County,  important  in  Virginia, 
3;    judicial    district    in    New 
England,  7. 
Court,  Supreme,  23. 
Crawford,  64. 

Decentralization,  of  power  of 
government,  48;  robs  the  peo- 
ple of  eflPective  control,  49; 
lessens  responsibility,  157. 
Declaration  of  Independence,  a 
system  of  political  philoso- 
phy, 9,  13,  14;  platform  for 
democracy,  14;  bond  of  union 
among  colonies,  15;  and  slav- 
ery, 87,  90 ;  and  majority  rule, 
90. 
Democratic-Republicans,  Jef- 
ferson, leader  of,  35 ;  triumph 


of,  37;  alarmed  conservatives, 
37;  did  not  "reform"  govern- 
ment, 38. 

Democracy,  roots  of  American, 
1 ;  influenced  by  physical  con- 
ditions, 3;  in  Virginia,  3-4;  in 
New  England,  5-7 ;  in  the  mid- 
dle colonies,  8-9;  platform 
for,  14 ;  modern,  based  on,  24 ; 
progress  of,  27;  aids  in  de- 
velopment of,  60-61;  charac- 
ter of,  in  U.  S.,  61-65;  Jack- 
sonian,  71-72;  Calhoun's  view 
of,  83  flp.;  attitude  of  South 
toward,  88;  and  extension  of 
suffrage,  91,  93-94;  progress 
of  114;  and  city  government, 
128;  distrust  of  in  constitu- 
tional convention,  140,  144; 
direct,  in  U.  S.,  impossible, 
155;  demands  easy  and  effi- 
cient method  of  expression, 
165. 

Direct  primary,  107;  in  South, 
112;  controlled  by  law,  113; 
purpose  of,  113-114. 

Election,  as  guarantee  of  re- 
sponsibility or  representative, 
46;  Jefferson's  attitude  to- 
ward, 47 ;  state  supervision  of, 
110;  primary,  112;  direct,  of 
Senators,  116;  evils  of  fre- 
quent, 135;  state  at  different 
time  from  national,  163. 

Electors,  theory  of,  abandoned, 
57,  98,  99. 

Emancipation,  91. 

Enfranchisement,  of  negro,  92. 

Equality,  proclaimed,  87,  89; 
not  secured,  90. 

Era  of  Good  Feeling,  65;  effect 
of,  on  office  holders,  72-73. 

Executive,  coordinated  with 
legislative  power,  158. 

Federal,  see  government  infra. 

Federalists,  Hamilton,  leader 
of,  35;  overthrown,  37;  prin- 


INDEX 


173 


ciples  of,  generally  adopted, 
66. 

Fifteenth   Amendment,   92. 

Fourteenth  Amendment,  91,  95. 

George  III,   12,  24,   150. 

Government,  form  of,  set  up  in 
colonies,  2;  common  elements 
of,  in  the  colonies,  8-9;  natur- 
al foe  to  liberty,  14 ;  first  state 
governments,  16;  outline  of 
our  system  of,  22;  division  of 
power  between  Federal  and 
state,  22-23;  three  depart- 
ments of,  23;  distrust  of,  24- 
25;  fear  of,  lost,  39;  distrust 
of,  by  Jefferson,  39-40;  com- 
plexity of  American,  50;  ef- 
fect of  complex  machinery  of, 
52-54;  control  of  for  private 
gain,  108-109;  changes  in,  116; 
and  majority  rule,  118;  to  de- 
lay popular  will,  119;  limited 
to  secure  liberty,  121;  sphere 
of,  122-123;  limited  by  nat- 
ural rights,  123-124;  influence 
of  form  of,  upon  character  of, 
132 ;  municipal,  commission 
form  of,  127,  130;  concen- 
trates power  and  responsibil- 
ity, 131;  change  in  attitude 
toward,  144,  145;  no  fear  of, 
145;  increase  in  activity  of, 
145,  146;  structure  of,  and 
popular  control  of,  149;  com- 
plexity of,  to  prevent  tyranny, 
150;  makes  control  by  few 
easy,  151;  simplicity  of,  and 
popular  control,  152-153 ; 
commission  form  of,  tends 
to  simplicity,  154,  156;  pro- 
posed changes  in,  156;  of 
states,  inefficient,  156-157. 

Governor,  royal,  opjwsition  to, 
3,  7;  local  examples  of  ty- 
ranny, 24;  piosition  of,  as 
leaders,  157;  and  cabinet,  157- 
158. 

Graft,  development  of,  109. 


Hamilton,  thought  Bill  of 
Rights  unnecessary,  30;  Sec- 
retary of  Treasury,  31;  his 
financial  measures,  32  ff.;  fa- 
vored "loose"  construction, 
34;  no  fear  of  government, 
41. 

Hobbes,  theory  of  government, 
9. 

Impeachment,    139. 

Initiative  and  referendum, 
breaking  down  distinction  be- 
tween constitutions  and  or- 
dinary laws,  21;  96;  116;  132; 
product  of  distrust  of  legis- 
la,tures,  133;  as  emergency 
measures,  133;  change  in 
theory  of,  134;  introduce  new 
principle,  136;  burden  of, 
137-138;  development  in  use 
of,  138;  tend  to  complicate 
government,  154. 

Jackson,  defeat  of  in  1824,  68; 
career  typical  of  new  democ- 
racy, 69-70;  election  of,  in- 
troduced new  social  class, 
75;  brought  new  principles  of 
government,  76;  as  direct 
representative  of  people,  77; 
attitude  toward  nullification, 
82. 

Jacksonian  Democracy,  differ- 
ence of,  from  Jeffersonian, 
64-65;  represented  the  masses 
against  the  classes,  72;  plat- 
form of  73-74. 

Jefferson,  advocate  of  Bill  of 
Rights,  30;  feared  tyranny 
of  government,  31;  Secretary 
of  State,  31;  favored  "strict" 
construction  of  constitution, 
34-35;  champion  of  people, 
37;  regarded  government  as 
oppressor,  40;  attitude  of,  to- 
ward judiciary,  43;  organized 
party,  56-57;  election  of,  how 
regarded,     72;     appealed     to 


174 


INDEX 


state  loyalty;  and  nullifica- 
tion, 79;  platform  of,  117. 

Jeffersonian  Democracy,  plat- 
form of,  42;  character  of,  63- 
63. 

Judiciary,  attacks  upon,  43; 
conflict  between  state  and 
Federal,  43;  power  to  declare 
law  unconstitutional,  44. 

Kentucky  Resolutions,  original 
draft,  36.  See  Virginia  Reso- 
lutions, infra. 

Legislator,  represents  a  district, 
142. 

Legislature,  distrust  of,  120- 
121;  limitation  of,  122;  theory 
of  representation  in  U.  S., 
142;  of  one  house,  158;  co- 
ordinated with  executive,  158. 

Liberty,  in  relation  to  law,  125. 

Life,  simplicity  of,  in  early  Re- 
public, 50;  growing  complex- 
ity of,  50. 

Locke,  theory  of  government, 
10-11;  purpose  of  govern- 
ment, 26;  theory  of  natural 
rights,   123. 

Louisiana  Purchase,  power  of 
Federal  Government  to  make, 
42-43 ;  believed  unconstitu- 
tional   by   Jefferson,   43. 

Madison,  forced  into  War  of 
1812,  64;  79. 

Majority,  and  choice  of  can- 
didates, 113-114;  rule  of,  and 
government,  118;  direct  rule 
of,  146. 

Marshall,  John,  asserts  power 
of  courts  to  declare  law  un- 
constitutional, 44. 

Marbury  v.  Madison,  44. 

Minority,  protection  of,  136; 
endangered  by  initiative,  136. 

Monroe,  65. 

Nature,  state  of,  Hobbes'  view 
of,  9;  Locke's  view  of,  11. 

Natural  rights,  theory  of,  123. 

New    England,    democracy    in. 


5;  town-meeting,  6;  church 
organization  in,  7. 

Nomination,  machinery  for,  58, 
98,  100,  107. 

North,  trend  of  development  in, 
87. 

Nullification,  doctrine  of,  81-82. 

Parliament,  theory  of  represen- 
tation in,  141. 

Parties,  for  and  against  adop- 
tion of  the  Constitution,  35; 
as  unifying  force,  52;  not 
foreseen,  55 ;  basis  of,  in  inter- 
pretation of  Constitution,  55- 
56;  united,  65-66. 

Party,  Federalist,  absorbed,  41; 
cause  of  disappearance,  42; 
of  "Jackson  men,"  101;  com- 
mittees, 104;  control  of,  104- 
105;  unifying  force  of,  105- 
106;  organization  of,  slow, 
113;  under  legal  control,  113; 
responsibility  of,  159, 161,  163, 
leaders  of,  as  leaders  of  gov- 
ernment, 160;  lines  drawn  on 
national    issues,    162. 

People,  attempts  to  secure  su- 
premacy of,   146-147. 

President,  method  of  election, 
98-99. 

Presidential  primaries,  113. 

Politics,  a  career,  160-161. 

"Pork  barrel,"  disappearance 
of,   160. 

Puritans,  became  Congrega- 
tionalists  in  New  England,  5. 

Recall,  purpose  of,  139-140; 
and  majority  rule,  140;  of 
liegtis/lative  ireprdsentativies, 
141. 

Referendum,  see  initiative. 

Reforms,  to  secure  supremacy 
of  popular  will,  117-118. 

Registration,  as  reform  meas- 
ure,  111. 

Representative,  not  responsive 
to  popular  will,  119;  resi- 
dence in  district,  159. 


INDEX 


175 


Republican  party,  95. 

Responsibility,  lack  of,  in  gov- 
ernment,   128-129. 

Revolution,  of  1688,  9,  10,  12; 
right  of,  12. 

Rights,  natural,  9,  11;  of  man, 
13,  14,  17. 

"Rotation  in  office,"  76. 

Secession,  impossible,  89. 

Se^iator,  popular  election  of, 
142. 

Separation,  of  powers  of  gov- 
ernment, 53;  rejected  in  com- 
mission form,  130;  theory  of, 
134. 

Short  ballot,  as  reform  measure, 
139;  tends  to  simplify  gov- 
ernment, 154,  164. 

Slavery,  early  attitude  towards, 
87-88;   a  "positive  good,"  88. 

South,  development  in,  87;  aris- 
tocratic feeling  of,  88. 

Sovereignty,  popular,  of  state 
constitutions,   16. 

SuflFrage,  extension  of,  60;  man- 
hood, 92-94. 


Tariff,  first,  33;  brought  con- 
flict between  state  and  na- 
tion, 79-80;  effect  of,  upon 
South,  80. 

Thirteenth  Amendment,  91. 

Town  meeting,  in  New  Eng- 
land, 6,  96. 

Union,  nature  of,  81;  indissolu- 
ble, 89. 

Victor,  to  the,  belong  the  spoils, 
76. 

Virginia,  character  of  democ- 
racy in,  4;  House  of  Bur- 
gesses, 4;  agricultural  life  in, 
4. 

Virginia  and  Kentucky  Resolu- 
tions, 36,  79. 

War  of  1812,  gave  national  im- 
pulse,   65. 

Washington,  first  President,  31. 

West,  new  democracy  of,  61- 
62;  effect  on  ideas  of  goT- 
ernment,  71. 

William  and  Mary,  11. 

Williams,  Roger,  proclaimed  re- 
ligious liberty  as  inherent 
right,  13. 


